


Enemies and Allies

by 11_Gadget_27



Series: Mercenary!AU [1]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: BDSM, Graphic Violence, M/M, NSFW, There's a plot I promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:34:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 26
Words: 34,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22292635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/11_Gadget_27/pseuds/11_Gadget_27
Summary: Terminus Space is lawless and the only way to get anything done is to pose as just another mercenary. Blackwatch sniper Crassus Sativum is transferred to the command of Mav Virim. He's not a man Crassus would ever find himself working with otherwise but there's more to him than a volatile disposition and overuse of grenades.
Series: Mercenary!AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1932319
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> You guys know I'm shit at summaries so just take that worth a grain of salt. The story will follow Crassus and Mav as they get to know each other and learn to work together. The plot takes a little bit to get under way but I promise it's there.  
> Also, Mav and Crass are two of the characters I've been roleplaying as for the last six years. They are mine. Canon chacters are not mine and thus belong to Bioware.  
> _Gadget

“Fuckin’ hell,” Mav spat on the ground. “Nobody told me you’d be so damned big.”

Crassus’ first thought following that statement was that no one had told him his new CO would be so damned short. The retort, of course, didn’t leave his mouth. For one, it wasn’t exactly true with the way the man’s notoriety was spread across light-years. For two, Mav Virim’s reputation included a mean streak and Crassusus didn’t want to start off on the wrong foot. So what came out of his mouth in reply was a noncommittal, nebulous sound. He _was_ big, standing at least a foot over most turians and towering over Mav by at least a solid three. And it seemed, his reputation didn’t proceed him.

“That’s all you got?” He mimicked the sound out his nose and then sighed, rolling his head back on his shoulders. “Alright, fair ‘nough. Right now that’s ‘bout how I feel meetin’ you. Shit. You’re just a big brick wall, ain’t you?” Mav narrowed his bright orange eyes. “You got more brains than a wall, yeah?”

Crassus narrowed his eyes right back, his mandibles shifting stiffly along his jaw and he bit the words out before he had time to think about them. “At least half as many as you. Sir.”

There was a beat of silence after the words left his mouth, a millisecond and an eternity to think about them afterwards. Time enough to give thought to that reported mean streak, to register Mav’s body language before the shorter turian threw him for a loop. He barked a laugh and grinned, showing more than a few sharp teeth in something less of a smile and more of a grimace.

“I like you.” He declared. “We’re gonna get on like a house fire.”

He didn’t know how to take that statement at all. House fires, in his experience, left little more than destruction and ashes in their wake. While that fit with Mav’s reputation, it didn’t fit with Crassus’. He wasn’t a man of total devastation if he didn’t need to be, and rarely did he need to be. He was sure one couldn’t say the same about Mav.

“You don’t say much, do you?” The smaller man huffed, continuing before Crassus could reply in any case. “Reckon that doesn’t matter. C’mon then, I’ll show you my ship and where you can store your shit.”

Mandibles shifting tight against his jaw again, Crassus hefted the case carrying his rifle and the duffle with the rest of his possessions onto his shoulder. He was willing to bet the rifle alone weighed more than Mav in heavy armor and he had an unusual impulse to whack him with it. A house fire indeed.

…

Mav’s ship, it turned out, was an old transport shuttle retrofitted with some very obvious recent upgrades. Crassus took note of several off-colored nodules and protrusions along the hull. Shinier metal standing out again duller sections at least half as old as he was. He glanced at Mav, the question on his tongue of if the ship even flew properly anymore. It looked too ungainly and lopsided to even get off the ground, let alone break atmo or reach the speeds needed for Mass Relay travel.

“Don’t let her colors fool you,” Mav said, one of his mandibles slanted defensively. Crassus noticed the other mandible didn’t move at all, hanging just a little crooked. “It’s nothin’ but paint. She can out-pace all the cruisers in this lot and shake off as much damage as a frigate.”

“If you say so, Sir.” Crassus uttered, but he did look closer. There were no obvious welding lines to the upgrades and the differences in paint were a little too smooth, a little too well blended to be the hodgepodge of parts he’d first assumed them to be. It was a well done disguise.

“I do fuckin’ say so and quit callin’ me Sir.” The smaller turian snapped, striding past him and to the airlock doors. A swipe over them with his omnitool and they cycled open all nice and smooth. “C’mon now. Day light’s wastin’ and I’ve got shit to do.”

The inside was disguised in much the same way. The walls were painted in some shade of de-saturated green that seemed to attract dirt and grime. The floor clearly hadn’t been swept in Spirits knew how long and the lights overhead flickered off and on at random with bulbs that weren’t strong enough to light the whole place effectively anyway. At first impression, the ship was a total junker inside and out. Of course, that was before Mav showed him to the locked cockpit, it’s inner-door view port blacked out so he couldn’t see anything from outside the room. Allowed to peek in for just a moment, Crassus observed brand new equipment and haptic interfaces that were all top of the line as far as he could guess.

After that, Mav showed him to the shared sleeping quarters. Thankfully it was as up-to-date as the cockpit if only relatively clean. The too-small-cot obviously meant for him was the only truly bare surface. Mav’s side of the room was littered with clothing and bits of armor, datapads tossed here and there, and small arms sitting unsecured at random. Mav liked his guns apparently, and his knives, too. It made Crassus wonder what was in the clearly locked cabinet in the corner.

“I picked up some,” Mav said dryly. “Enough to take a walk from this wall to that and to get that cot in. O’course, if I’d known you were damn near eight feet high, I’d’ve gotten a longer one.”

Crassus let his mandibles shift along his jaw in annoyance. How was he ever going to function in this mess without his own space? It was going to be akin raising his sister again and managing to step on every single toy. Only Taren’s toys hadn’t been as likely to cost him a limb or toe as Mav’s were. He swallowed down the feeling of indignation. He could fight the compulsion to make the room clean and orderly and he greatly doubted that Mav would appreciate him touching any of his things. He’d just have to get used to it, he knew really didn’t have a choice in the matter.

“Thank you.” He said after too long a time. “I appreciate the space.”

Mav snorted behind him. “Once more with feelin’, big guy, yeah?”

“Pardon?” Crassus looked over his shoulder, but the smaller turian was already out the door. He tossed his rifle case and duffle on the cot and turned to find him.

Halfway down the short corridor, Mav was waiting. “The kitchen, if you can even call it that, is through here.” He gestured. “Bathroom’s down that hall.”

Crassus took a look around the small kitchen, finding it just as cluttered as the bedroom but as streamlined as the cockpit. He looked at Mav to find the other turian studying him with narrowed eyes.

“You figured it out yet?” He challenged, arms rising to cross over his chest.

Crassus considered quietly a moment. “The front half of your ship is a decoy. Dirty, dark, stifling. It’s meant to look rundown and unkempt to match the outside.”

Mav inclined his head. “Yup.”

“When you have to entertain, let’s say, you don’t let anyone past that first hallway or your cover would be blown.” He continued.

“Entertain,” He laughed. “Yeah, sure, alright. It’s an obvious ploy but it fuckin’ works.”

The man’s laugh rubbed Crassus the wrong way, making him want to shift from foot to foot. It made him want to check that his side arm was properly loaded with a round in the chamber. “What happens when someone does make it through?”

Mav blinked at him, his head tilted a little to the side. “I kill ‘em.” He said simply. “I’m hungry. You wanna eat?”

It was Crassus’ turn to blink. “Ah, no, no thank you.”

“Suit yourself,” He shrugged. “You dunno what you’re missin’. I’m a damn good cook.”


	2. Chapter 2

Mav had earned every bit of his infamy, Crassus learned in the days that followed. The smaller turian had a temper equal to a krogan warlord with a fuse just as short and it was paired with a creative vocabulary that would put a Terminus pirate to shame. Crassus found himself wondering how the man had ever managed to rise up the ranks of the Hierarchy with such a foul disposition and cavalier approach to all things orderly. By all accounts Mav should have been spending his days scrubbing clean brigs with his own toothbrush. However he held the rank of Special Operative within the Blackwatch, had command of his own ship, and a direct subordinate. He also had operational freedom, something Crassus was surprised to discover. Mav made contact with his own superiors once a week via omnitool and he didn’t even have to vidlink if he didn’t want to. It seemed he had as much working leeway as a Council Spectre with every supply he could ever want just an informal request away.

“I ain’t no Spectre,” Mav had laughed uproariously when he’d asked. “Shit, those crazy varren-fuckers don’t want anythin’ to do with me. I make too much of a damned mess.”

Just how much of a mess, Crassus didn’t yet know, but he didn’t doubt it at all. Those first few days were a type of leave, Mav keeping his ship docked while he signed off on supplies and wandered around the port city. Crassus didn’t leave the ship. There wasn’t anything in the city he wanted to see and no provisions of his own he needed. He cleaned off a corner of the table in the kitchen and read through files trying to learn all about his new placement and Mav as he could. In spite of his own rank though a lot of the other agent’s files and dealings were beneath blackouts he had no clearance for. Days into the new partnership and all he really knew about the other agent were his own observations and rumors. Mav’s orange colony tattoos noted his place of birth as Carthaan and Crassus could guess his age, but he didn’t know if the man had any family or friends or where he called home. By comparison, with his clearance, Mav seemed to know everything about him from his family life such as it was, to the details of his every assignment from boot-camp onward, including every commendation and demerit over the years. Mav knew about his former drinking problem and that the steel over-lay in the fingers of his left hand were from long before he’d enlisted, long before.

“I’d’ve broken my hand beatin’ the fuck outta ‘im too. Parents shouldn’t ever hurt their kids. Nobody should ever hurt a kid.” That was all he’d said on the matter but it gave Crassus another piece of information and it was something they could agree on. Despite his very rough edges, Crassus found himself… not liking Mav exactly, but not minding his company all that much either. He still mostly kept to himself though, staking claim on the small section of cleared away kitchen to work on final reports from his last posting.

He’d just sent the last one off for review when his omnitool chimed an incoming call. “Hi, Taren.” He greeted, tones warm and affectionate.

“Hey, Crass.” She smiled back at him, purple striped mandibles flared wide. “So I guess you forgot to call when you landed two days ago now, right?”

“I didn’t forget,” Crassus told her. “By the time I landed here, it was midnight on Palaven and I didn’t want to wake you.”

“And I totally sleep for forty-eight solid hours every few days, right.” She rolled her dark green eyes at him. “I was worried about you.”

“You could have called me too. Like you are now.” He said, smiling slyly at her. Taren had been a whirlwind of attitude and opinions since the day she was born and then she had hit her teen-aged years with a vengeance. Crassus knew if he’d been half as intelligent at fourteen as she was now, he’d have been bored of everyone’s varrenshit too.

“You talk about not wanting to wake me up at midnight and I don’t even know where you are.” She groused. “You’re a lot less fun to wake up, so…?”

Crassus snorted a laugh. “I can’t tell you where I am,” He said. “But it’s morning.”

“And going on dinner time here,” She said, almost thoughtfully and he could just see the wheels turning in her mind. Taren would figure out roughly where he was based on timezones alone in a few moments and while he couldn’t tell her outright, he could hint and then they wouldn’t talk about it. He did his best never to really talk about his work within the Blackwatch with his sister. She’d worry. Or she would yell at him for how dangerous it all was. It could go either way.

“What are you doing for dinner?” Crassus asked, just to keep the conversation going. Taren would start her mandatory enlistment through bootcamp in a few days and then it might be weeks before they could freely chat again.

“Inalia and her sisters are taking me and some other friends out,” She said, shrugging. “Just some fast food as far as I know, but Spirits’ know it will be a while before we’re all together again. What do you do for food? Are you on another frigate again?”

Crassus glanced over his shoulder and then shifted a little to block her view. Taren, sometimes, was too observant for her own good. He cleared his throat. “Not a frigate this time, no.” He said. “It’s my new partner’s shuttle. He cooks and, ah, quite well, too.”

Taren tried to peek over or around his shoulder but he could tell she was only playing at it and not being serious. “Better than you?”

He laughed. “I’ll admit it’s pretty close.”

“Come on, no one cooks better than you.”She snickered, leaning on her hand and idly playing with the piercings through her mandible. “So this new partner have a name? What’s he like?”

“Are you going to ask me if he’s cute, too?” Crassus drawled, tones dry but teasing too.

“Well… Is he?” Taren asked in the same tone, smirking at him.

“He’s fifteen years older than you, at least.” He huffed.

“So are you.” She shot back.

“I’m your brother, don’t be gross.”

Taren gave him an affronted look, laughing as she leaned back in her seat. “Oh, ew, I meant like fifteen years more isn’t that old, Spirits, Crass. You’re the gross one. Ew.”

Crassus laughed with her, running a hand back over his long fringe. “His name is Mav,” He said. “And, I suppose he’s objectively good looking.”

“What does objectively good looking even mean?” She rolled her eyes at him again. “Either you think he’s hot or you don’t.”

“Why do we always have this very strange conversation?” He chuckled.

“Oh whatever.” Taren said. “What’s he like to work with?”

Crassus scratched at one of his mandibles, wondering just how he should answer that. “We’re still in the middle of a resupply,” He said honestly. “I haven’t been into the field with him yet, but he seems… efficient. Goal oriented and focused. I have no doubt what ever the assignment, he and I will be able to see it through to the end.”

She nodded. “Sounds like you, honestly.”

He had to fight not to grimace but he didn’t want Taren to know he was having second thoughts about the placement with Mav. “I suppose, yes.”

“Hey!” Mav’s voice cut through the kitchen and Crassus looked up to see him standing in the doorway. “When you’re done gossipin’ I wanna see you in the hangar.”

“Hi Mav Sir!” Taren chirped, smiling at Crassus cheekily.

The man barked one of his chilling laughs and walked away. Crassus straightened in his seat, mandibles fluttering just a little, unsure why he was embarrassed to be caught talking to his sister. They had been talking about Mav, sure, but it was an odd feeling nonetheless.

He looked down at his omnitool again. “That would be my cue to go,” He said.

“Yeah, I’ve got to get ready for tonight anyway.” She said. “Call me, okay? I love you, big brother.”

“I love you too, Taren.”

…

In the hangar he found Mav wrapping combat tape around his talons and humming idly to himself. “That your baby sister you were talkin’ to?” He asked, tossing the tape to him.

Crassus snatched it out of the air and got started on covering his own talons. “Yes,” He answered a little warily, unsure what Mav was getting at if anything.

“Havin’ family must be nice,” Mav said airily, stretching out his limbs a little.

He blinked, pausing with a strip of tape hanging from his pinkie. “Taren’s it,” He said. “You’ve read my dossier, you would know that.” How else would Mav have known just how he’d broken his hand otherwise?

Mav snorted. “I don’t read that shit in the dossier’s.”

Crassus’ mandibles thinned and he tossed the tape aside. “I take it then, that you don’t have any family?”

That crooked mandible twitched ever so slightly as Mav turned to face him again. “Come at me like you wanna fuck me up, big guy.” He said. “Let’s have some fun.”


	3. Chapter 3

As if his size hadn’t been a clear indicator, Mav was a combatant that relied on speed and precise strikes over sheer strength and power. He was a wiry, slippery bastard too. Every time Crassus closed the distance between them and managed a grip on some part of him, he would somehow twist loose and retaliate in a way that forced Crassus to fall back a step and regroup. Letting Mav wear himself out wasn’t going to work when the other man wasn’t even breathing hard and Crassus was getting winded just trying to block his hits and keep up with him.

Mav aimed for every painful and weak area: calf-spurs, the inside of the elbow, that sensitive spot where mandible connected to jaw… Over and over, he connected quick and sure and forced Crassus to retreat for moments at a time amid the flashes of pain. Moments the smaller turian didn’t allow, delivering another fast attack on the heels of the last. Crassus attempted more than once with his longer reach to trip Mav up and take him to the ground to grapple but every attempt was met with the smaller turian sliding out of his hands.

Finally, Crassus landed a precise blow of his own, knocking Mav’s guarding hands aside for a split second and giving him a good smack to that crooked mandible. He hissed, jumping back to protect his face and likewise Crassus didn’t grant him the retreat but pushed his advantage. Once he had Mav on the defensive, he was easier to handle. A hit to the solar plexus doubled the smaller turian over in an exceedingly satisfying way but the follow-up knee strike to his face didn’t go as planned.

He blocked it with his hands, wrecking Crassus’ balance and lightning fast grabbed one of his calf-spurs to wrench it sharply backwards. He snarled in pain, shoving Mav to the ground as he backed off. It shouldn’t have been a surprise that he was willing to fight dirty, still that wasn’t a move used in simple sparring. Then the way Mav grinned at him as he regained his feet told Crassus everything he really needed to know about the man. His anger flared in response and suddenly he was just as willing to forget the rules.

It was luck the punch to Mav’s face that rocked his head back and twisted his body around didn’t snap his neck too. The blood pouring down over his shirt made him difficult to get a grip on but once Crassus got an arm around Mav’s neck and his feet off the floor, it was over. He took them to the ground, using his larger size to pin Mav on his belly. The smaller agent snarled and grabbed at the arm over his windpipe first, digging in with his taped talons, and while he was strong, Crassus was stronger and resisted every pull. When that didn’t work Mav cursed and tried to throw his body this way and that to break or loosen Crassus’ hold on him, but that failed too and Crassus let his body move to follow. Mav’s hands then scrabbled over the floor for some kind of purchase before he gave up and resorted to trying to buck Crassus off him but without leverage of any kind it was impossible, and again he just moved with the smaller turian, bodies tight together. Crassus tightened the hold with the worst of his squirming, pinning him against his chest and the floor, cutting off his air until he was sure Mav would pass out but finally he surrendered, smacking at his arm with a flat palm twice. Overheated and sweating in the aftermath, Crassus kept him pinned with a firm hand on the back of his neck to keep him in place a few minutes longer before he shifted his arm and relented the hold completely.

Mav shoved him away and scrambled up onto his hands and knees, sucking in great gasps of air. Crassus hovered over him and watched his shoulders and torso shake as he struggled for breath, worried for a moment that he’d gone too far and really hurt him.

“Sir?” He reached to lay a hand on his shoulder…. And earned an elbow to the jaw that sent him crashing backwards to the ground as Mav sprang back to his feet. He blinked up at the man and shook his head clear, ignoring the ring in his ears.

With blood still wet on the lower half of his face and all over his shirt, the smaller turian looked like a vengeful Spirit, like a Wanderer made flesh. Mav kicked him viciously hard in the ribs. Crassus groaned, curling up, wary of another kick or something worse and abruptly became aware how open his plating was, how hot he was in his own skin. It had been years since sparring had gotten him hard, not since he was a teenager, he was sure and now… Spirits, he was completely open and out inside his pants and he didn’t know when it had happened. Mav, he wished he hadn’t noticed, was in the same state. Standing over him, expression furious, pants straining to cover him and damp in the front. Those orange eyes narrowed dangerously when he realized that Crassus could tell.

“Don’t you ever put your fuckin’ hands on my throat again.” He warned and stomped off.

It was a while before Crassus dared to move from the ground. Long enough for his blood to cool and his… condition to recede behind his plating again. But all he could think of was Mav’s response to being bodily pinned to the ground and choked, how hard he had been too. Biological reaction or not, it was a revelation about the man he didn’t want to have.

Crassus went to shower before he returned to their shared room, both to get clean and to give Mav some time to calm down. Evidence of the smaller turian was all over the bathroom. A pair of pants behind the door, a damp towel spotted blue, and the sleeve of the shirt he’d been wearing flopped out over the side of the trash. It had been a lot of blood, even for just a broken nose, but Crassus guessed the shirt was unsalvageable. His might be too where Mav’s blood had dripped down the arm of it. He took it off and tried to scrub it clean in the sink under cold water with no luck. The actual wash might save it, he decided, throwing it in the bin, but it wouldn’t be the first shirt he owned stained with blood.

Crassus stripped down the rest of the way and got into the shower. Immediately all he could smell was Mav. The soap he used, lingering sweat and cologne… His plating was still too loose for his comfort and the shower turned cold and quick. Crassus was left shivering when he got out and wrapped a towel around himself but it was better than being hot and open over Mav of all people.

…

In the shared room, Mav was already in bed, curled on his side with his arms crossed over his middle. He’d washed the blood off his face along with his colony markings. Barefaced and asleep like that, he looked a solid decade younger and oddly harmless. Crassus bet there was a gun under the pillow and the mattress both and he bet at least one of them had been shifted to point at his cot. Mav was by no means harmless. He wondered if he had his colors removed- his were tattooed and not painted- would he look as young and harmless?

He snorted to himself at the thought and laid back to get comfortable. He was inches away from eight feet tall and built widely, solidly, like a brick wall as Mav was already fond of teasing him. He _sounded_ outer-colony as much as he looked it, his voice the rough and low timbre of Invictus. Nothing near as charming as Mav’s inner-colony-world rolling twang. Mav’s colors were welcome everywhere, orange the perfect compliment to the bold cobalt of Palaven. Invictus purple on the other hand was only a few rungs down from Taeteris red. A Separatist color representing a hostile world where flora ate more fauna than the other way around, where turians killed each other for scraps of food and bits of land. A planet of teeth in every sense and Crassus knew he had been lucky to leave it behind and lucky to save Taren from it as well… He rubbed his eyes and ran both hands over his fringe. He must be more tired than he’d realized if he was musing about colors and markings again.

A sound from across the room drew his head up and Crassus fully expected to see that cold fury in Mav’s eyes again but the smaller turian was still sleeping, he’d only shifted a little on the cot. One arm now across the pillow and hiding his face, Mav whimpered and nuzzled down into the cushion before he fell silent again. Crassus stared at him, his mandibles hanging loose, before he just closed his eyes and went to sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

Mav smoked while he cooked, standing with his back to Crassus as he came into the kitchen, exhaling off to the side every few moments.

“…Can Ailuros be ready in two hours” He asked into his omnitool and the other half of the conversation was lost to Crassus through an earpiece. “Good. Yeah? … Nah, that’s good, I’m brinin’ a friend. …Have ‘em ready then. I’ll be there in two.”

Mav flicked his cigarette into the sink and got started putting two plates together as Crassus took his seat at the table. He waited for the other turian to acknowledge him, and shortly, he did.

“Eat up,” He said, setting the plates down. “We’re goin’ out today.”

“Going out?” Crassus asked, eyeing the plate. It was a perfectly traditional breakfast: eggs, cured fish, thick toast with a small amount of butter, and a few pieces of cut fruit. Every meal had been traditional turian fare styled after the homeworld and Crassus wondered just how much time the smaller turian had spent there. For a man so… unconventional, he seemed awfully stuck in the ways of proper turians.

“Uhuh,” Mav hummed and took the seat opposite him. “We’re gonna get nice and loose before we head out to the ‘Verge.”

“I have no interest in drinking away my last day of leave.” Crassus told him simply.

The smaller turian made a derisive sound, his mouth full of toast and coffee. “I’ll drink enough for the both of us then,” He muttered snidely. “You’re comin’ ‘long in either case and I’ll fuckin’ order you to have fun if I’ve gotta.”

Crassus bit in to some fruit and the juice ran down his chin briefly before he wiped it away. “Somehow, Sir,” He said in much the same tone since Mav was already in a nasty mood. “I doubt we have the same definition of fun.”

He laughed. “Big guy, every turian has the same definition of fun. You just gotta pry the stick out first. So happens I know a good place for that. ‘Course, this place I know, they can always give you a bigger stick if you’re so inclined.”

Crassus flared his mandibles sharply. He had no interest whatsoever of actually seeing Mav’s idea of fun… but if the volatile little shit was really planning to drink himself stupid, he would need a minder to keep him out of trouble. And, probably, for the safety of everyone else. He dipped his head in acceptance.

“Right on!” Mav slapped the table, flashing his teeth in a grin. “Just wear somethin’ not Hierarchy standard, yeah? Can’t have you drawin’ attention to us. And for Spirit’s sake, don’t fuckin’ call me Sir.”

…

Crassus’ only civilian clothes were still loosely styled after Hierarchy standard, perhaps meant to be looser overall, he found them to be on the tight side with as big as he was. Mav, however, looked melted and poured into his clothes. The shirt in dark blue hugged his arms and showed off part of his chest, and the pants it seemed were meant to be tight. With his face still bare, he looked like a completely different man. He looked… soft and harmless while at the same time attempting to look rough, like a child playing dress-up. Crassus found himself again envious of his ability to blend in.

“You look good, big guy.” Mav said, eyeing him up and down. “You look like I don’t wanna fuck with you before a few drinks.”

Crassus flared his mandibles in annoyance. “You look like I’ll be finishing you out of a fountain.”

“I’d like to see you try to put me there,” Mav laughed at him. “C’mon now. Let’s have some fun.”

…

Mav took him to a bar as Crassus knew he would. He thinned his mandibles along his jaw and shot a glare between Mav’s thin shoulders. “I don’t drink.” He reminded.

“Not askin’ you to,” He said. “But I do and I’m gonna.”

“Mav…” Crassus said at length, stopping short when the smaller turian whipped around to look up at him.

“Listen big guy, I ain’t gonna make you drink. I know you don’t and you don’t gotta keep tellin’ me. We ain’t here for that anyway.”

Not here for that anyway? He let his mandibles draw in, Mav was rarely forthcoming with information but his constant avoidance and side-stepping answering anything was starting to rub on Crassus’ nerves. He ran a hand back over his fringe and just followed behind the shorted turian into the bar. Then through a series of doors, stopping at last before a big krogan.

“Your weapons.” The brute grumbled.

Mav surrendered two guns and a series of knives with one of his toothy smiles. “C’mon big buy, hand ‘em over.”

Crassus hesitated only a moment before giving the krogan his side-arm. The door behind swung open and all he could smell suddenly was smoke and sex. He blinked in the darkness of the room revealed to them, registering low lighting and bodies. Very scantily clad bodies.

“Mav….”

“Yeah, big guy?”

“This… this is a brothel.” He said, something like disbelief in his tones. “You’ve brought me to a brothel.”


	5. Chapter 5

Crassus crowded Mav in against a wall. “Why in the Spirit’s name would you bring me to a brothel?” He demanded.

The smaller turian leaned on the wall nonchalantly with one hand on his hip like he had no concern for the way he was being spoken to and his mandibles slanted. “I reckon cuz I thought you could use a good, relaxin’ time before some fuckers start shootin’ at us.”

He flared his mandibles at Mav. “I don’t think that’s your call to make.” He said lowly.

“Really not carin’ much for your tone, big guy.” The smaller turian muttered, putting a hand on his chest and pushing him back. “You think I didn’t feel your dick against my ass the other day? You need a good fuck as much as I do.”

“By the Spirits,” Crassus snapped, backing away from him. “I think I hate you. I really think I do.”

Mav snorted a laugh, ran a hand over his fringe and took a moment to adjust his shirt. “It ain’t a big deal. Lotta folks hate me, big guy, I get over it.” He pulled his cigarettes from his pocket and lit one. “Look, bottom line, where we’re goin’…. I can’t have you as tense and pent up as you are. You’ll get one of us killed at best or captured at worst. I’m lookin’ out for you, big guy, believe it or not.”

“I don’t need your help to get laid.”

He laughed again. “Never said you did. Just that you’re gonna so I don’t have to watch my six as closely.”

Crassus wanted very much to punch him, to make him eat that foul smelling cigarette in his hand. To give him a good shake that maybe rattled the teeth out of his mouth. Instead he took a deep breath. Mav was his superior and despite every bit of abrasive crudeness, for all intents and purposes, his word was law. But by the Spirits, Crassus would rather have a drink again than let someone he didn’t know touch him.

Mav was watching him critically, his eyes a little narrowed, his mandibles still slanted. “So… I need to have the bouncer escort you out or what?” He asked after a moment, and when Crassus shook his head, he smiled. “Good. You’ll have fun, trust me, big guy.”

He wasn’t certain he could trust Mav individually but he’d trusted all his commanders before him. It was ingrained, trust and obedience, the unit before the self and even being born on a purposefully forgotten colony couldn’t erase the behavior.

Crassus followed Mav down a long hallway to a door that stood ajar and then he followed inside. Long couches, a short table with bottles of alcohol and water waiting, a huge bed against the far wall were all that was in the room at first glance, but slowly Crassus noticed other things. A pair of handcuffs rested on one of the couches along with a blindfold and a long bit of soft looking rope. One of the bottles on the table was a bottle of lube and not alcohol or water.

He rubbed at his face and just let himself fall into one of the seats. Mav’s idea of fun… Well he couldn’t really argue with it now even if it wasn’t his method of relaxing before assignments.

“You act like I’ve brought you somewhere horrible,” Mav teased him, flopping into the seat next to him with one of the bottles already to his mouth. Where his cigarette had gone, Crassus didn’t know. “You’ll have fun, big guy. The proprietor sized you up when we walked in, he knows what you need.”

Crassus looked at him sideways. “What I need?” He drawled.

“Mhm,” Mav took a big swig from the bottle in his hand. “He’ll put your pet for the night in white and-”

“I’m sorry. My pet?”

“It’s just a word here. No real pets or Masters, just some play at it.” Mav waved dismissively. “Anyhow, a pet in white you don’t touch. Strictly hands off for you. The pet though, well, they can do all the touchin’ they want.”

“No one is putting those cuffs on me.” Crassus said lowly, pointing to the offending object on the table with his mandibles flared outward.

“Cuffs ain’t for you, big guy.” The smaller turian snorted. “Neither’s the rope or that blindfold there. That’s my thing.”

He groaned, covering his face with his hands again. “Spirits Mav.”

“You really need to lighten up some,” He chuckled. “Look, alright, profession aside, a pet in white is as vanilla as they come. They don’t even tease you properly, it’s just mutual release. Which is what you need, big guy. A good, uncomplicated fuck.”

Crassus thinned his mandibles. Mav wasn’t entirely wrong, but this wasn’t his method of finding that release, not at all. He preferred something a little more intimate, a little more cozy and friendly with someone he actually knew. And, to be blunt, not with his commander in the same room… His volatile commander that had a thing for cuffs, blindfolds and ropes. By the Spirits why had he ever agreed to be transferred?

“Relax, big guy.” Mav said again, taking another big swig from that bottle. “That’s the whole point of this.”

“Or you’ve got a voyeurism kink too and-” Crassus’ attention was drawn away by the opening door and the young man peeking his head in. He smiled wide when he spotted Mav.

“Master Mavi!” He darted into the room and it seemed Mav noticed he was dressed in white the same time that Crassus did.

“Ah shit,” He chuckled, putting his hands down on the couch cushions and holing on. “They put you in white, baby.”

“They did, Master Mavi, just for today.” The young man said, pecking Mav’s mouth lightly when he reached him. “But next time, I’ll be yours to play with.”

“I’m lookin’ forward to it already.” Mav smiled at him and then gestured. “This is Crassus. Crassus, this is Ailuros, and you’ll be nice to him, big guy.”

The smaller turian’s voice had dropped to a low and menacing register, warning Crassus that he wasn’t playing around with that at all. He nodded his head and murmured some agreement, staring over at the young man petting Mav’s fringe. He was small the way Mav was small but nowhere near as muscled, not bony exactly but not far from it either. He looked to be in the awkward stage between boyhood and manhood and Crassus thinned his mandibles along his jaw.

“How old are you?” Slipped out of his mouth before he could think of a proper or tactful way to ask.

Mav’s purr suddenly stopped and he glared. “What kinda bastard you think I am, big guy?”

The young man laughed though. “No, no, he can ask, Master Mavi, it’s okay.” He turned a bright smile Crassus’ way. “I’m twenty, just a runt, Master Crassus.”

Being called that put an awful taste in his mouth and Crassus reached for the water bottle on the table to wash it away. “Ah… that’s… that’s good, thank you.”

“Asshole,” Mav scoffed, leaning back in the couch. “Who’s comin’ to play with me, baby?”

Ailuros caught his hands with the cuffs and raised them to the back of the couch, securing them to something Crassus couldn’t see. “Baast is coming to play with you, Master Mavi. He’s just running a little late, but he told me to get you ready for him.”

“Yeah? How you gonna get me ready, sweet thing?”

“Like you don’t know, Master Mavi.” The young man giggled.

Crassus drank hard from the bottle of water. This was a side of Mav he didn’t want to be privy to at all, but his eyes kept being drawn to him and to the… pet. Ailuros was petting over Mav’s fringe with one hand and opening the buttons of his shirt with the other, fanning it out to either side before going for his pants. Crassus forced his eyes to focus on something else. The wallpaper was nice.

“Master Crassus?”

He looked up to find… the pet standing in front of him, and a quick glance showed Mav properly bound and blindfolded, resting against the couch with a little grin and damn near naked. Crassus looked back to Ailuros, his mandibles flared in question.

“There’s rules you need to know.” Ailuros told him, kneeling between his feet.

“I’d thought there must be, yes.” He said at length, leaning way back against the couch.

“I’m wearing white tonight which means you can’t touch me, so you should sit on your hands. If you do touch me without my explicit say-so, I’ll leave the room and you’ll be banded from ever coming back here.”

“I understand,” Crassus said. “But -and don’t take this the wrong way- I don’t intend to touch you at all.”

Mav laughed from his end of the couch. “Big guy’s a little closeted, baby.” He teased.

“I’m sure he’s just nervous. You were too once, Master Mavi.” Ailuros shot back, still smiling.

“I’m neither nervous, nor closeted.” Crassus put in, sliding his hands in under his thighs so he wouldn’t touch accidentally. He still didn’t plan to do any touching, but better safe than sorry, and he was sure Mav would be heavily displeased if he got them banned.

“Wary then, if you like.” The pet smiled up at him and it even reached his violet eyes, giving them a brightness that hadn’t been there before. It was charming and Crassus mused, had they met differently, he might find the young man attractive enough to approach. As it was… Yes, wary was the correct word.

“Crassus is so _wary_ that he might get me shot.” Mav drawled, mandibles slanted with that grin of his.

“Oh we can’t have that, Master Crassus.” Ailuros winked at him. “Master Mavi is a favorite here.”

Crassus glanced over at Mav again, the smaller turian halfway naked and reclined comfortably with his hands bound over his head. He supposed he could see the appeal. Tied up and silent was a good look for Mav.

“But forget about him-”

Mav made a wounded sound.

“-it’s just you and me now, Master Crassus, and I can help you relax.”


	6. Chapter 6

Crassus’ mandibles fluttered. “I appreciate the sentiment, really, but-”

“How about you just close your eyes and lean back, Master Crassus.” Ailuros suggested, sliding hands up his thighs and tracing twitching muscle.

“Ah… Well…”

Mav laughed again. “C’mon now big guy, let my baby treat you, yeah?”

Spirits, Crassus could feel the heat of his blush as it raced up his neck toward the mandibles he couldn’t keep still. Like all this didn’t make him uncomfortable enough, it just figured Mav would dig in the proverbial knife. Did he have to be here too? Maybe if… But that was a big maybe for Crassus, even with very warm hands that moved between his legs.

“I guess I should have told Ailuros to gag you too, Mav.”

“Ah, Baast, I thought you liked me talkin’.” Mav chuckled warmly.

Baast was a drell in dark blue pants, his chest bare and the light of the room danced off scales that Crassus could only describe as iridescent, shifting between a deep blue of their own and a soft wine sort of color. He didn’t know enough drell to know if the black patterns that ran over his scales were unique or not but they were certainly eye-catching. Crassus caught himself staring and flicked his mandibles in apology for the rudeness. Baast seemed unconcerned, smiling small at him.

“You should focus on me, Master Crassus.” Ailuros trilled from between his legs, grinning as he nuzzled one thigh.

“Ah… sorry, yes…” He flicked his mandibles again and adjusted his hands under his legs. Normally with a man between them, Crassus would be petting his fringe and it was surprisingly difficult not to touch that sandy colored fringe now. Particularly as his plating loosened the higher up Ailuros nuzzled until he was open and hot inside his pants.

The pet didn’t miss that, smiling up at him as he boldly licked the seam of his pants. Crassus drew in a sharp breath, his mandibles flared and his erection descended fast enough to be embarrassing. Ailuros immediately kissed it and Crassus moaned quietly when it pulsed.

“Oh, finally big guy,” Mav chuckled. “I was startin’ to think you were never gonna- _Fuck_ Baast don’t _yank_ on ‘em!”

Crassus looked over at the yelp. Baast held Mav’s head back by the ends of his fringe, the angle of his throat sharply displayed. All of him displayed. Baast had taken away his pants and shirt and now there was nothing that hid the erection standing up from Mav’s hips. Bigger than Crassus would have expected, dark blue and pulsing with need as Baast stroked it with his other hand.

“If you’ll play nice, I’ll let go.” The drell said almost sweetly.

“You yank on somethin’ else, Baast, and I’ll play real nice for you.” Mav said in the same tone, rolling his hips up into that hand.

He looked away, mandibles fluttering sharply. Ailuros kissed him again and then sat back a little to draw his shirt off and toss it at Baast. “Stuff that in his mouth,” He giggled. “He’s distracting my master.”

“I’ll bite you.” Mav warned and his tones were only partially playful but then he was blessedly muffled.

Crassus couldn’t help the little sigh of relief, his head leaned back on the couch for a moment. Without Mav’s commentary, it was easier to… enjoy. Ailuros was back to mouthing him through his pants, hands holding his thighs wide when they weren’t groping at him. It wasn’t long until Crassus was pulsing needfully, straining the front of his pants, and breathing a little heavy. Ailuros purred for him, reached up and finally let his erection out, kissed the tip of it and gave it a soft lick. Crassus moaned outright.

“You can touch my fringe with one hand,” He said, his breath almost cool on Crassus’ heated skin. “But don’t hold my head down.”

“I won’t,” Crassus promised, freeing one hand and gently laying it across Ailuros’ fringe as the pet lowered his head.

Spirits he slid deeper than he would have thought, the pet’s throat working around his tip in a way that made Crassus squeeze his eyes shut. His tongue slid over and between ridges, his mouth withdrawing until it was the tip that was teased so perfectly with that tongue. Then Ailuros slid back down again, slowly, all the way. Crassus moaned, petting softly over his fringe. How long the pet played with him like that, gradually going faster, he couldn’t say, but all too soon it seemed, Crassus murmured a warning.

Ailuros drew off him slowly and smiled. “So now, Master Crassus,” He said with a low purr to his voice. “I can climb up in your lap and ride you. …Or you can take me to the bed and fuck me.”

It took Crassus a moment to process and to slow himself, blinking a few times. He heard Mav’s labored breathing and found his head turning in that direction before he could stop it. Baast was pumping away between the smaller turian’s legs, holding him off the couch with an arm behind him and his other hand between their bodies to work Mav over that way. It was clearly having the desired effect. He was breathing hard through that shirt stuffed in his mouth, body twisting and straining for more. … Crassus swallowed.

“Wha-” And had to clear his throat too. “-what would you prefer?”

Ailuros glanced back from Mav, his mandibles dancing. “Honestly? I want you to spread my legs and fuck me twice as hard as Baast is fucking Master Mavi.”

The tone of his voice was truly honest and Crassus found himself chuckling warmly, running a hand over his fringe. “Go get on the bed then,”

“Take me there.” Ailuros said as he stood and slid his arms around Crassus’ neck. “Oh, you can touch me now.”

“Good,” He stood, drawing the pet in closer until long legs wrapped around his hips and opened plating pressed firmly over his erection. “Spirits, you don’t weigh a thing…” Crassus could lift him higher and sink right in if he wanted, Ailuros was so wet…

It was just a few steps to the bed and Crassus laid the pet down on it, slid his hands down Ailuros’ legs as he unwound them from his hips and spread them wide. The pet stretched his arms over his head and lifted his hips, showing off that widespread plating and wet sheathe. He hadn’t descended yet but the enjoyment was clear. Crassus shed his clothes in a hurry and climbed over the pet.

“You can fuck me there if you want, I like it.” Ailuros purred, smiling. “Or you can just play a little first. Whatever you want, Master Crassus, but fuck me soon, please. I hate being so empty.”

That bottle of lube was so far away, Crassus reasoned, glancing over his shoulder to the table. He did his best to ignore Mav, the way his hands clutched at the cuffs and the back of the couch as he whined, as Baast did whatever it was he was doing to him. He had his own concerns with his length pulsing and aching and Ailuros looking up at him with big eyes. Spirits… fuck it. Crassus took himself in hand and guided his tip to the pet’s sheathe, easing in slowly to the first ridge of his cock. Ailuros moaned and arched his hips a little higher, taking Crassus to his second ridge easily. At his third, he felt the pet starting to stretch around him, a maddening sort of squeeze and he had to withdraw before he came.

“Spirits…”

Ailuros’ laugh was warm and playful. “You won’t hurt me, Master Crassus. Let me have it all.”

“If I do, I’ll cum right now.” Crassus told him honestly, easing in again because how could he not. The pet felt wonderful, tight and slick and perfect, and it had been far too long since he’d had anyone.

“You can fuck me more than once.” He laughed again. “I even want you to.”

Crassus murmured a curse and put his head down on the pet’s shoulder to muffle a laugh. He was going to kill Mav for this. Or thank him. He hadn’t decided yet. Ailuros wrapped a hand under his fringe and licked the side of his throat as he rolled his hips and took Crassus in again all the way to his seventh ridge. His cock thickened closer to the base and now the pet was really stretched around him, squeezing so tightly it was hard to breathe and harder to think about anything but getting as deep as he could into the pet. Crassus reached and pulled one leg up over his hip as he reared back.

“Oh!” Ailuros moaned loudly and gripped his keelbone with both hands as Crassus thrust the rest of his length inside. Their plating met in a hard smack and he could feel Ailuros’ cock against his own, how it pulsed rapidly, filled and grew hard. “Again, Spirits, master…oh…”

He withdrew half way and thrust deep, ground himself against the pet’s plating and then did it again and again. Ailuros kept moaning, clung to him and whispered more and more encouragement. Crassus held to his hips and pulled him to meet every deep thrust. The pet’s sheathe was even tighter now that he was hard too, but it was more slick than it had been, natural lubricant making every thrust smoother than the last. Soon Crassus was pounding into him and chasing the end result, holding his legs wide to get even deeper. Ailuros met him thrust for thrust, squirming and whining and keening pleasure.

“Master… Crassus Im-!” Ailuros stiffened around him, tight and rippling and suddenly so very wet inside.

He moaned and shoved as deep as he could to feel the pet cumming on him, the rush of fluid between their plating. His own release was just as intense, a few final urgent thrusts, a rush of euphoria, and then Crassus stilled, panting. Ailuros stroked over his fringe and purred, nuzzling a little at his chest.

“Please tell me you’re going to fuck my ass that hard,” He trilled, stroking down over Crassus’ waist with his other hand, fingers teasing near where they were joined.

“Literally as soon as I catch my breath again.” Crassus’ drawled.

“Good. I liked how you pulled on my hips,” Ailuros told him. “You can get a good grip on me from behind.”

He couldn’t help but chuckle. “I just bet I can.” He murmured, running his own hands down to pet at the young man’s hips. From behind… yes, he’d be able to get a very good grip on him… Crassus felt himself pulse with interest again and he pulled from the pet’s soaked sheathe very slowly, his ridges dragged along inner walls.

Ailuros moaned and shivered under him. “Spirits, I love that feeling.”

“I do too,” Crassus hummed and shifted up a little. “Roll over for me?”

The pet grinned and stretched, showing himself off before he rolled onto his front. He spread his legs wide again and planted his knees to lifted his hips. “You can bite the back of my neck too, if you want to.” He offered over his shoulder. “It makes me cum every time and I know you liked that.”

“I did.” He told the pet, moving into position on his own knees, stroking himself to get hard again.

It didn’t take much with the way the pet presented himself, his thighs slick from earlier and his spine dipped perfectly. Crassus ran his free hand along his back, cupping his ass once before he wrapped that hand around Ailuros’ hip to hold him still. He guided himself to the pet’s entrance with his other hand, stroked the tip against him a few times…

“I bet you’re glad you used my sheathe for lube,” Ailuros giggled, moving with him. “It got you all slick, Master Crassus.”

“Now it’s going to get you all slick,” Crassus murmured and pushed into him with none of the slowness of before, his first six ridges forced the pet to stretch around him and Ailuros’ moan was beautiful.

“Master!” He whined, pushing back until Crassus took hold of both hips and stilled him. “Oh… oh… please…”

“Say just my name, please.” He said softly.

“Crassus,” Ailuros squirmed in his hands and Crassus used his hips to jerk him back hard, thrusting the rest of his cock inside. All thirteen of his ridges were squeezed perfectly tightly even with the pet stretched around him and the sound he made…

“Fucking Spirits…” Crassus groaned, holding him in place as he ground his plating against Ailuros’ ass. “You’re so tight. Spirits,”

“I won’t be, Spirits, you’re huge,” The pet whined, struggling a little in his hands. “Fuck me, Crassus, come on.”

Crassus shifted his grip a little, encouraging Ailuros to move in time with him instead of holding him in place. His ridges squeezed and rubbed in turns with every hard thrust or buck from the pet. He ran his hands all over Ailuros, groped at his waist and thighs as often as he pulled on his hips. When the pet’s own erection finally slipped from his sheathe, Crassus’ hand was there to stroke it too, pumping him counterpoint to his thrusts until he had the young man keening into the bed. For a long time, they moved together, until Crassus sealed his teeth around the back of Ailuros’ neck and the pet went completely pliant in his hands. A hard thrust directly to that sweet spot inside and Ailuros whimpered and came in Crassus’ hand.

He kept stroking, holding that grip on the back as his neck and pulling him onto hard thrusts with an arm under him. Ailuros kept whimpering, squirming in his hands, his orgasm going on forever until Crassus finally had to let that part of him go, his own release fast approaching. He pinned the pet firmly flat to the bed and fucked him hard and frantic, until, as deep as he could possibly get, Crassus came too, his hips bucking until he had nothing left to give.

Slowly, he pulled his teeth and his cock from Ailuros, petting down his back again. “You okay?” He murmured.

The smaller turian laughed. “I am so okay,” He said. “By the Spirits, you can come back and fuck me any time.”

“I might do that,” Crassus flopped onto his side and chuckled, rubbing his eyes. “Mav sort of… tricked me into coming here. I thought he was just going to try to get me drunk. I wasn’t expecting this at all. Then he ordered me to have fun.”

Ailuros rolled onto his side too and shifted close, almost cuddling up to Crassus. “You were really tense,” He said. “Mavi just wanted to help you, he’s nice like that.”

“Nice isn’t a word I’d use to describe Mav, not at all.” He snorted.

“I’d guess you haven’t been traveling with him long then,” The pet said and he did curl closer, one arm thrown over Crassus’ waist. “Mavi’s really nice. He’s not like any of the other mercenaries that come here. He follows the rules, he’s even helped our bouncers enforce them a few times.”

Crassus propped his head in his hand, putting an arm across the pet too since it was okay to touch him now. He didn’t correct Ailuros thinking Mav was a mercenary either, that was their cover and he knew he needed to stick to it. “That’s… good then that he’s not causing any further trouble.” He said at last and looked toward the couch.

Mav’s hands rested loosely in those cuffs but they shook faintly as Baast released them. “Shhh, I’ve got you,” The drell said so quietly he almost couldn’t be heard. “I’ve got you, Mav. Look at me. It’s okay…”

Ailuros touched his mandible and turned his head back toward him. “Don’t worry, he’s fine.” He smiled.

Crassus smiled back. “Of course he is.”


	7. Chapter 7

Crassus startled awake, sat up in a hurry and looked around. It took him a moment to realize the bed he was sprawled across wasn’t his cot. His pants sailed across the room to join the shirt on his chest and he spotted Mav wiggling into his clothes.

“Get up, big guy,” He said.

He pulled his pants on first and ignored the dried mess on his body, he could shower later. Mav said get up, he got up. “Where’s Ailuros and Baast?” He asked.

“Around,” Mav shrugged. “They were gone when I came to, too. C’mon, I’m starvin’ and the bar serves some good hangover food.”

“Drink too much?” Crassus drawled as he buttoned his shirt and shoved his feet into his boots.

“Not near as much as I’d have liked to after Baast gagged me.” The smaller turian muttered in the same tone, heading toward the door.

He couldn’t tell from Mav’s tone if that was supposed to be a joke but he thought he saw him smile just a little. Somehow it didn’t surprise him that that was the kind of thing that got his superior off.

….

The bar did indeed serve good hangover food. Along with a little hair of the varren that bit you. Crassus didn’t need any of that but Mav got a tall, skinny glass of what smelled like gasoline to wash down his greasy bacon and fried eggs. The smaller turian ate like ravenous man, taking each bite like it was the first one in years and the last he was likely to get. Crassus picked a little at his own food and idly watched the mirror above the bar and the people in it. Pets, some looking worse for wear and some walking lightly without a care and other patrons like himself and Mav. His mandibles drew in, he couldn’t believe he’d… Last night. Normally his usual urges were ignored at best and outright neglected at worst, but he could safely say he’d never thought he’d use the services of a brothel before. Mav was clearly a bad influence.

Crassus sipped his water and laid his fork over the plate. Mav had ordered a second helping and was working his way through it with a glass of juice now.

“That all you gonna eat?” He asked, his mouth full.

“Where you thinking you were going to get my scraps?” Crassus muttered in return.

“Here I thought gettin’ you laid would improve your disposition.” Mav snorted and wiped his mouth.

“There’s nothing wrong with my disposition.”

“You don’t smile, you don’t laugh, you don’t crack jokes. Your dossier tells me you lose your temper but I ain’t seen that yet.” He listed off, pointing up a finger as he went. “Hell big guy, do you breathe?”

Crassus glared at him through the mirror.

Mav only laughed. “Oh, and that’s your default expression.” He flashed his teeth. “I’m only givin’ you shit, big guy. Your temperament don’t bother me none.”

“You sure comment on it a lot.”

“I’m just seein’ how thick your skin is.” The smaller turian said, throwing down a hefty credit chit on the bar-top. “The folks I run into, big guy, make me look a saint. I wanna know beforehand that some trash talk ain’t gonna make you squeeze the trigger before it’s time to.”

“I know when to squeeze the trigger.” Crassus said tightly. “I also know when not to. And for the record, _Sir_ , that particular disciplinary action is from years ago.”

“From before you quit drinkin’, yeah I know.” Mav said it so easily that Crassus again felt a violent impulse towards him. He’d worked hard to quit.

“Were I still drinking-”

The smaller turian caught him with an intensely empty stare. “Big guy, in a real fight against me, you don’t stand a chance.”

Crassus furrowed his brow at him. “I beat you sparring.”

“Mhm, you did.” He agreed as he got up from the bar. “But I wasn’t tryin’ to kill you.”

He thinned his mandibles along his jaw and got up too. There was something about Mav, his flippancy interspersed with deadpan statements and that stare… Crassus believed him. In a true fight, Mav would win because he was more than willing to kill. That he was willing to kill an ally was concerning, of course it was, but Crassus could also respect the survival instinct. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been in a similar situation before.

“Let’s hope then, that you and I don’t fight for real.” He said at last.

“Just follow my lead, big guy.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey you made it to the plot! I told you it would be here.

Blackwatch operatives used code-names in the field. Crassus’ was _Overseer_ because as a sniper primarily, he tended to hang back. To oversee the whole of the battlefield so he could act tactically on-the-go as the situation called for it. The Blackwatch called Mav _Mayhem_ because six grenades in the span of half an hour- while certainly effective- was excessive. His wild laugh rang through the comms with every _boom_ and Crassus grit his teeth together as the reverb shook his cover.

Geth limbs and servos and whatever else it was that had the machines up and moving with continuous deadly purpose were now just bits of metal and wiring scattered to the winds. Mav had told him they’d only face a handful or two units of the bastards, give the Alliance soldiers a little back up and then be on their way. When they’d touched down on this outpost though it hadn’t been near that simple. The Alliance soldiers were dead or had simply retreated with no word left behind and the Geth numbered near to fifty. Or they had before Mav had planted himself behind an outcropping of rocks and started lobbing grenades one by one.

Crassus covered his head with one arm as the scaffolding above him groaned and shifted. A few large pebbles bounced off his helmet and he cursed hotly. “Six is enough!”

Mav’s laugh echoed in his ears. “That was lucky number seven, big guy!”

And just like that, the area was quiet. Crassus scanned around with his scope as Mav left his cover to explore. There were Geth pieces everywhere, the grenades had seen to that, and some of them twitched sporadically before going still again. The death-throe similar movements had Crassus’ mandibles tight to his face and his stomach in a knot. Geth were borderline sentient but they were still only machines and machines didn’t feel pain: they shouldn’t be twitching like that.

“I’m callin’ this in to Command,” Mav said. “They need to know the Alliance up and left and just how many of these fuckin’ Geth were kickin’ ‘round.”

Crassus hummed an agreement, avidly watching the fingers of a disembodied arm as they spasmed. It made his plating crawl and he turned away from it, his eyes roving across the high rock walls of the canyon and all the embedded and stationary construction equipment. He guessed the Alliance had hoped to build a real outpost here but they had only just started to before the Geth had arrived. He spotted an eezo powered crane at the top of the canyon, dormant for the moment but he could imagine the hum of the machine when it powered up. They had been common on Invictus and if he remembered correctly, it had been one of the machines to inspire Taren into engineering…

Mav paced by in front of him. “I can’t get a damn signal,” He snarled.

“The Geth probably planted a jammer somewhere.”

“Them or the Alliance-”

The glint of metal registered in the corner of Crassus’ eye. He turned and lifted his rifle without thinking, muscle memory and something like instinct. At the top of that eezo crane he saw the Geth sniper through the scope and he squeezed the trigger twice. His rifle kicked hard against his shoulder but Crassus didn’t lose his stance, watching and waiting… He saw the Geth fall and lowered his rifle.

“I bet the jammer is by that crane,” He told Mav. “High ground, a defensible position and a sniper to protect it. I’d place it under the machine.”

Mav didn’t reply. Crassus turned toward him with a question on his tongue and saw the smaller turian sprawled on his back on the ground. The Geth sniper had gotten him in the split second before Crassus had returned fire. He couldn’t believe it… Spirits, what was he supposed to do? Obviously he’d contact Command and tell them but, Mav… He blinked several times and almost jumped clean out of his armor when Mav lifted his head off the ground and rolled slowly to his feet.

“By the Spirits!”

“I can’t hear a damn thing you’re sayin’, my fuckin’ ears are ringin’ so damned loud.” Mav growled, brushing himself off. “Dunno if you can hear me either actually.”

Crassus reached him in half a step and grabbed the front of Mav’s chest armor, holding tightly to it as he looked the smaller turian over. At the same time, Mav reached up under his jaw and unclasped his helmet to pull it off.

“Fuck, look at that.” Mav pointed to the streak of embedded debris that peeled away the matte black finish of his helmet along the side of it. The Geth’s bullet had only grazed him but it had done enough to send him to the ground and knock out his comms. “I reckon that might legitimately be the closet I’ve gotten.”

Crassus stared at him. “…Really?”

Mav hung the helmet off his belt and shrugged. “Maybe so. I dunno. Lotta folks try to kill me.” He stretched. “What were you sayin’ while I was makin’ sure my head was attached?”

He blinked at Mav again, his mandibles working along his jaw inside his own helmet. A half centimeter in either direction and… Sometimes he genuinely didn’t know if he wanted to shake Mav or strangle him. “You’re welcome,” He said tightly. “I said if the Geth installed a jammer, the best spot for it would be under that crane.”

The smaller turian looked up at the canyon walls and sighed. “You feel like takin’ a climb up there?”

…

An hour later after they’d climbed up an almost straight incline, Crassus bent forward with his hands on his knees and huffed as he tried to catch his breath. Mav was doing the same next to him.

“I hate this Spirits forsaken place,” He panted. “My fuckin’ head is poundin’, I’ve got sweat poolin’ in my boots and these fuckin’ humans can’t even build proper fuckin’ stairs. And it smells like fuckin’ decomp up here!”

Crassus straightened up and his mandibles flared widely. “That’s because there are bodies up here.”

“…Ah for fuck’s sake.” Mav spat on the ground.

They’d found the Alliance soldiers and even more dismantled Geth. Along with scattered pools of dried blood and what could almost be called a swarm of insects. Mav strode past him with a hand over his mouth and nose, giving bodies a poke with his foot as he went. Crassus followed him more sedately, respectful of the dead even if they weren’t his own species.

“Fuck, I feel bad sayin’ shit ‘bout the stairs now.” Mav muttered. “This ain’t no way to die. Look at this mess.”

“I’d rather not.” Crassus muttered. The Geth had torn them apart and literally in a few cases.

Mav loitered by the operating cab of the crane, running his hand back and forth over his fringe. “Yeah, fair ‘nough I reckon. Shit.” He said. “Alright. I’m gonna wiggle my way in under the crane and see if I can’t find that damn jammer. You just don’t let nothin’ else shoot at me.”

Crassus nodded his head and pulled his rifle down into his hands again. The smaller turian muttered a few more things to himself as he got down on his belly and did indeed wiggle in under the crane, his feet kicking against the dirt until he was out of sight. That he could fit beneath it in his heavy armor was a testament to how small he was. Crassus paced a tight loop around it, his head tilted as he listened to every sound… The buzz of those insects, the creak in the joins of his armor as he sifted, Mav displacing dirt and rocks and whatever else beneath the crane… A footstep not his own. Crassus stopped pacing. The insects had gone silent.

“Mav,” He called. “I think you should forget about the jammer. We need to leave.”

“In a sec, big guy!” He yelled.

Crassus’ every instinct in the seconds that followed told him to run and he marched over to the crane, knelt and reached under. He found Mav’s ankle and wrapped his hand around it, Mav cursed and kicked at him.

“Spirits! You scared the shit outta me!” He snarled.

“Shut up and put your head down so I can pull you out.” Crassus snapped back at him.

“Let me the fuck go.”

“Yes. You should let him go.” There was a click and a whir sound and Crassus stilled even his breathing.


	9. Chapter 9

Crassus tightly squeezed Mav’s ankle and then slid his hand free, held it up above his head with the other one. It was all he could do. Whoever held the gun to his head was far enough away that he knew disarming him wasn’t an option. He could only co-operate until an opportunity presented itself.

“Good. Stay kneeling as you are but move to the side.” The man told him and the flange in his voice marked him as a fellow turian.

Crassus again obeyed the order, shifting back on his knees and a little to the side. The other turian stood back from him some ten feet, a pistol held loosely in his hand but aimed properly. His armor marked him as Cabal.

“Mavic, you come out from under there. Slowly.”

It was a moment before Mav wiggled out, covered in dirt with his crooked mandibles flared in annoyance as he got to his feet. “Are you fuckin’ kiddin’ me?” He said lowly. “Get that gun outta my face, Spectre.”

Spectre? By the Spirits… Crassus groaned for himself. A Spectre of his own species had put a gun to his head after sneaking up on him. More than that, the Spectre was biotic if he was wearing Cabal armor. A biotic Spectre had put a gun to his head. Mav had very nearly lost his head to a Geth sniper. Crassus couldn’t believe the way his day had turned out.

“Big guy, you can get up. The Spectre ain’t gonna shoot us.” Mav spat on the ground again.

He glanced to the Spectre and watched him holster the pistol before he did get back to his feet. “Sir.”

“Shut up,” Mav snapped. “The fuck you doin’ here?”

The Spectre stood at ease and narrowed pale eyes at him. “The Geth are here.”

“The Geth _were_ here. I took care of ‘em. Were you up here watchin’ while one tried to take my fuckin’ head off?” The smaller turian snarled and threw his helmet at the Spectre. It bounced off the chest of his armor and rolled away.

“Your partner had the matter under control.”

“Fuckin’ barely!” Mav bared all his teeth and took several threatening steps forward. “C’mere, I’ma beat the shit outta you.”

The Spectre shifted his stance and gestured lazily with his hand. There was a smell like burnt sand and suddenly Mav was floating above the ground in a biotic… bubble. Crassus found his hand on his side arm and his eyes darting between the Spectre and his commander. The Spectre noticed of course.

“I’m not hurting him.” He said, his mandibles flicking. “Mavic just needs a moment to get himself under control.”

“Don’t fuckin’ call me that, you cheat!” Mav snarled and wildly struggled inside the bubble. “You always fuckin’ cheat! Put me down!”

“When you’ve calmed, I’ll put you down.” The Spectre said and Crassus watched him gesture again, watched the bubble get smaller and smaller until Mav was crammed inside it. His helmet pinged a warning and he read the displayed vitals.

“He can’t breathe! Let him go!”

The Spectre hardly spared him a glance.

The warning blared again, this time paired with an exceptionally fast heart-rate and Crassus reached for his weapon. Mav was panicking. “Let him go!”

The biotics dissipated and Mav crashed to the ground, curling up in a defensive ball. Crassus could hear his growl stuttering and rushed to his side. The smaller turian was shaking when he reached him, staring at the Spectre with wide eyes and flared mandibles.

“Why would you _do_ that to me?” He demanded and there was something to his voice Crassus had never heard before.

“Mav, Mav enough, you need to focus on slowing your heart-rate.” Crassus told him.

“I did not realize such things still affected you so deeply.”

“You’re fuckin’ shit at apologies.” Mav snapped, glaring.

“… I did not see the Geth shoot at you or I would have intervened.” Was the Spectre’s reply to that.

“That’s the best you’ve got?” The smaller turian spat. “At least Desolas raised one of us right.”

“Mavic.”

“Fuck you.”

Crassus squeezed his shoulder. “You need to take some deep breaths,” He ordered, eyeing the Spectre hard. “Your heart-rate is nearing twice the resting speed and if it doesn’t slow, I will sedate you.”

Mav turned those burning orange eyes on him. “You’d leave me defenseless with _him_?”

“Of course not.” He said, mandibles flaring. “But I don’t want to fight an ally because you can’t control your temper.”

“Mavic has never been able to control his temper.” The Spectre said.

“Growin’ up with you breathin’ down my neck sorta made it hard to.”

Crassus blinked at the both of them. Mav with his Carthaan colors and the Spectre with none. One built small and lithe, the other built a little more like him. Orange eyes, pale eyes, blue-silver plating and almost white plating. There was nothing about them that was similar, no family resemblance that he could see.

The Spectre sighed and bent to pick up the thrown helmet, inspecting it. Crassus saw him run his thumb slowly over the damage and then look to Mav again. “We wish you were more careful with your life.”

“Y’know the humans have a sayin’ ‘bout wishes.” Mav nudged Crassus back a little as he pushed to his feet.

“And when did you start to care about what the humans have to say?” The Spectre asked him. He held out the helmet.

“Havin’ a few save my life once or twice cuz it was the right thing to do got me to listen.” Mav snatched the helmet from his hand and hung it off his belt again.

“The right thing to do changes with perspective.” The Spectre told him.

“No, it don’t.”

“Yes, Mavic, it does.”

“Stop…” Mav’s mandibles flared. “…Callin’ me that. It’s just Mav.”

The Spectre thinned his mandibles at him. Crassus flicked his own. “Desolas would like for you to come home.”

“You didn’t come all the way out to the ‘Verge to tell me that.” The smaller turian ran his hands over his fringe. “And nah, I’ll go home when I wanna and I don’t wanna yet.”

The Spectre breathed deep through his nose. “Very well.” He said. “No, I didn’t come all this way to extend a… familial invitation. I’m following Geth activity.”

“Increased Geth activity?” Crassus asked, watching Mav out the corner of his eye. Distraught was never a word he’d thought he would use to describe him but as Mav paced a tight path back and forth between him and the Spectre, it was the only word he could think of.

“For whatever reason, the Geth don’t leave the Perseus Veil much and yet here they are in the middle of Terminus space.” The Spectre said. “There have been more attacks on outposts such as this and numerous sightings in the local cluster.”

“It’s outlaw territory, who cares?” Mav spat. “Let the Geth kill some of my pirates for me.”

The Spectre thinned his mandibles again. “Two days ago the salarian Special Tasks Group sighted Geth on Tuchanka.”

Mav stopped pacing. “Geth on Tuchanka… Shit.”

“That’s completely on the other side of the galaxy from the Perseus Veil.” Crassus breathed, looking at them both. “What are they doing here?”

“I don’t know.” The Spectre said.

“I want access to your data.” Mav demanded, his arm held out and his omnitool already active.

The Spectre raised his own and transferred the information. “Keep it to yourself for now, Mavic. And should you see any more Geth on your assignment, I want to know asap.”

“You will.” The smaller turian nodded his head.

“Then I have more work to do here. Another Spectre will join me shortly. You need to be gone by then. When you make your report-”

“-Thwarted by Spectre involvement, I know the drill.” Mav sighed and jerkily wiped his hands on the legs of his armor. “…I’ll come home next leave. I’ll even message you first so we can all be there.”

“Desolas and I would like that.” The Spectre said.


	10. Chapter 10

Back on their ship, Crassus stripped out of his armor, cleaned it and put it away. He did the same with his rifle and side-arm and stored them both in the locker beneath his cot. He could hear the shower running down the hall. Mav hadn’t said a word to him since they’d left the outpost and the Spectre behind. Crassus hadn’t tried to strike up a conversation either, more or less lost in thought over the implications of the Geth entering civilized space. While Tuchanka wasn’t exactly what could be called civilized, every station and colony along the way could be. The Geth would have passed within a few thousand light-years of the Citadel to get there and Tuchanka was painfully close to Palaven.

The shower stopped. Crassus waited a handful of minutes until he was sure Mav was out of the bathroom and then went to take his own. Some twenty minutes later when he returned to their room, Mav had managed to fill it with smoke from his cigarettes.

“You couldn’t do that in the hangar?” Crassus asked him, covering his nose with his hand. He didn’t mind the smoke normally but that much of it in one tiny room and he minded a lot.

“I’d open up a window if I could,” Mav drawled. “But no window and I reckon you findin’ me downin’ a couple bottles of horosk would put you in a bad mood. Or you’d be tempted to join me. Can’t have that. One of us should be sober.”

“I already found one of the bottles in the shower.” Crassus told him as he sat down on his cot. He sniffed the air. “Did you use some of my cologne?”

“You have nice cologne.” Mav flicked his mandibles. “And I only sprayed a little.”

He sighed and leaned back on his cot. Spectres and Geth and Mav’s reaction to both were all he could think about. “Do… do you want to talk about it?”

Mav took a long drag off his cigarette and then dropped it into a cup of water by his cot. “I reckon it couldn’t hurt any. I’m drunk enough.”

Crassus wondered if the empty bottle he had found in the shower had been full when Mav took it in there. He was almost willing to bet it had been.

“My parents died on Shanxi durin’ the Relay 314 Incident.” Mav told him. “They were servin’ under General Desolas Arterius when their convoy was ambushed. Y’know how that goes.” He gestured with a long sigh. “They took a fuckton of humans with them. I reckon I’m proud of that but y’know, I’d’ve rather they’d lived.”

He lit another cigarette and Crassus gave him the moment to collect himself again. Mav, he knew, was a private man and of course these things weren’t easy to talk about. They way he did without emotion or inflection to his voice, made Crassus uncomfortable but he knew sometimes the easiest way to talk was to separate yourself from the emotions. And he could admit his curiosity about his commander, he’d take any information he could get.

“Anyway a lot of parents back then sent their kids to Palaven in case the worst happened. I remember some civil servants watched over me and a bunch of other kids. And Saren. He’s my age. My parents were with his brother and I stuck to him like glue… When Desolas came back at the end of the Incident and told me what happened, well he did the right thing by my folks and adopted me.”

Mav dropped that cigarette into the cup of water too and immediately lit another one.

“I hated him. I really did for the longest time. Maybe I still do, I dunno. I hated my folks for a bit too. If they just hadn’t re-enlisted, y’know? But… they did what they thought was the right thing. They were both awarded the Star of Palaven posthumously. Not that that matters or anythin’. I remember tryin’ on a few occasions to throw the medals away. Saren wouldn’t let me. He hasn’t let me do a lotta things… But never mind that shit. There’s my story for you. I’m just another angry orphan.”

Crassus studied him, his mandibles held at an angle. It was the most Mav had ever said at one time and about himself. “You’re not an orphan if the General formally adopted you.” He said after letting everything else sink in.

Mav laughed that skin-crawling laugh of his. “Nah, I reckon not, but I’m still fuckin’ angry all the time.”

“I’m familiar with the feeling.” Crassus drawled, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“You don’t show it.”

“I quit drinking.” He said in return.

“Fair ‘nough.” Mav sighed a long cloud of smoke and dropped that last cigarette in the cup of water. “Y’know… I found a balance. The anger don’t eat at me anymore. It don’t fester, it don’t… drag me somewhere dark anymore. It’s just part of me now. Another weapon I can use when I work.”

Crassus flicked his mandibles. He was familiar with the knife’s edge of balance too. “How many close calls have you had?”

Mav rolled onto his side with an arm behind his head. “You worried I have a death-wish that’ll bleed out onto you?” He asked sharply.

“Honestly? Yes.”

He snorted. “Y’know there’s nothin’ when the light goes out. No ethereal light, no guidin’ Spirits, no omnipotent creator. Not a damned thing. All that happens is you cease to be.”

Crassus shifted uncomfortably, tapping his fingers on his keelbone. That didn’t exactly ease his worries. “You don’t know that.” He said lamely after a minute or two.

“Oh but I do, big guy.” Mav flashed his teeth. “I took a space walk, got my tether severed by some damned rocks and ran out of air before anyone could get me. Legally dead for fifty-three whole fuckin’ minutes.”

He stared at the smaller turian, his mandibles fluttering along his jaw. “You can’t possibly have been dead that long without-”

“Brain damage, yeah, you’d think so.” He laughed. “Space is cold, big guy. Very cold. It’s probably the only reason the docs managed to revive me. ‘Course they kept me on lock-down and bed rest for fuckin’ months and you wouldn’t believe all the hoops I had to jump through to get reinstated, but here I am.”

“Spirits,” Crassus ran his hands over his face. “You really…”

“Suffocated to death in the cold emptiness of space.” Mav laughed again, coughed and reached for the cup of water. “Fuckin’… I need more water.”

He rubbed his hands over his face and fringe, scrubbed at his eyes a little. “You’re legitimately crazy.” He said at last. “I would have… done anything to keep from being reinstated after something like that.”

Mav sat up and swung his legs over the side of the cot. “To be perfectly honest with you, big guy,” He said with an odd softness. “I dunno what to do with myself when I’m not fightin’. I figure, if space didn’t kill me, maybe I had somethin’ important I was supposed to do.”

Crassus glanced at him. “I thought you didn’t believe in the Spirits?” Wasn’t that what Mav had just spelled out for him?

“I don’t.” He dismissed easily. “But I believe shit happens for reasons, maybe circumstances line up perfectly sometimes, maybe there’s a greater plan for everybody, I dunno. I reckon the details don’t matter. I know I died and some great docs brought me back. I know I should do some good with that so I’m out here in the Terminus to do some good and maybe some circumstances will line up perfectly again.”

Mav stood and stretched while Crassus processed that. He wasn’t religious by any stretch of the imagination, he’d never left offerings for the Spirits and he’d never visited Temple Palaven to put his hand to the stones there, but he believed in the Spirits. For one reason or another he always had. He didn’t know anyone that didn’t that was turian, even Mav, in one fashion, seemed to believe in them although he said he didn’t. Crassus rubbed his eyes again.

“I’m gonna cook something,” The smaller turian said. “You want some?”

“Ah… yes, sure.” He hoped Mav was sober enough not to burn the ship down.

“Alright then.” Mav lingered in the doorway a moment, clicking his talons on the frame. “Big guy, I ain’t gonna let it bleed out onto you. You can believe more or not, but I don’t have a death-wish.”

Crassus blinked at him. “Ah… that’s… that’s good to know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now we're up to all I've gotten written. Yes I have a plot outline so I know where this is going just not how long it's going to be. Or how long the rest of the chapters will take me. I'm effectively on a two week vacation from work because it's winter in Maine and part-timers don't get hours in the winter. I have nothing to do so I write. Anyhow, there will never be more than a week between chapters at most but I've been knocking them out lately. Expect more soon_ Gadget.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another short chapter but it went through two partial rewrites and then a whole rewrite when I finally convinced myself to pace a thing. You’ll see.

Chapter 11

Four days later, Mav docked them at the station again. They didn’t need to resupply as far as Crassus knew but then again Mav’s stock of grenades were probably near to depleted. At least he almost hoped they had been. Who habitually carried more than seven grenades? Of course on the off chance they were going to encounter more Geth, maybe he would start carrying some too.

Mav put the ship into standby as it ran a few diagnostics and cracked his back in the seat. “I’m gonna head to see the pets.” He said. “You can come too if you wanna but I ain’t gonna make you this time.”

“I’ll come with you,” Crassus said after a few moments.

The smaller turian flashed him a grin. “So you _did_ have fun with Ailuros?”

“It would be a lie to say otherwise.” He drawled and ran a hand over his fringe. He had had fun, more than he’d thought he would.

Mav laughed and for once it wasn’t that skin-crawling one. “I’m glad you enjoyed him. Ailuros is… yeah, he’s always been good to me, too. He might even be a little sweet on me.”

“Have you be seeing him long?” Crassus asked.

“Somewhere between seven and eight months,” He said. “Since I’ve been posted here and found that place.”

He flicked his mandibles. “You haven’t been out here as long as I thought.”

“Nah,” Mav shook his head. “Long ‘nough but not that long.”

“What were you doing before?”

“That’s above your clearance level, big guy.” He snorted as he got up from the pilot’s chair finally. “But don’t worry none ‘bout it. C’mon, let’s head out.”

Crassus flicked his mandibles again but Mav probably wasn’t wrong about his clearance level, the little peak he’d gotten at the smaller turian’s dossier had been nothing but black lines. It had hardly been worth the attempt to read. His own might as well be public record in comparison.

…

Ailuros had a black eye and a swollen mandible and he seemed skittish, looking back at the door as he closed it behind him. He wasn’t dressed in white today but in blue pants and a ragged dark colored t-shirt. To Crassus he looked a little like one of the duct rats on the Citadel: skinny and crinkled and childlike. His mandibles pulled up to his jaw in disapproval.

“What happened?” Mav wasn’t pleased either, his voice low and threatening, his crooked mandible flared.

“It… just someone that thought he was a real master.” The boy sighed, threw his arms around Mav’s neck and hugged him.

“Are you alright?” Crassus asked as he watched Mav hug him back with utmost care, stroking over Ailuros’ fringe.

“I’m fine, really. I hit my panic button and Baast and the bouncer threw the guy out. He’s banned now, thankfully. ...Mavi, you’re squeezing too tightly.”

“Yeah. Yeah, sorry.” Mav let him go and flopped back to couch. “Where’s Baast?”

Ailuros sat between them. “He’s caught the flu.” He chuckled a little. “I don’t know how he can kick so much ass feeling like shit, but he did.”

“I’m glad he was there for you, baby.”

Crassus hummed his agreement, catching eyes with Mav over the top of Ailuros’ head. The boy looked terrible, exhausted and worn with the bruises. He certainly didn’t look as alluring as he had the last visit. He looked like he needed a good long break, a hot drink and a sweet snack, and maybe a good warm blanket.

“Y’know, I’m hungover as all get out.” Mav said suddenly, the lie clear in his tones. He put his arm over the back of the couch and his fingers brushed Crassus’ arm in a clear _follow my lead_ signal. “Honestly, baby, I ain’t feelin’ up to playin’. Why don’t we just have an easy visit and you can just tell your boss whatever you wanna tell him?”

Ailuros glanced at him sideways and then let his head fall to rest on Mav’s shoulder. “I would like that a lot.” He hummed with a smile. “Spirits… I’m glad it’s you two.”

“Us two?” Crassus asked as he propped his feet up on the coffee table to get comfortable.

“Mavi you lie so bad it’s funny,” The boy chuckled again. “And you’re straight-laced, Crassus.”

Mav chucked. “I ain’t that bad a liar. Big guy is that straight-laced though.”

“So you thought telling me I look like shit and you don’t wanna fuck me was gonna hurt my feelings?” Ailuros poked Mav’s chest.

“I don’t think it’d hurt your feelin’s… You do look like shit, baby.” He grinned a little. “I don’t wanna fuck you cuz you look like you need a break. And I didn’t say it that way cuz I was raised better.”

Ailuros laughed again. “So yeah, I’m glad it’s you two.”

Mav leaned back on the headrest of the couch. “I’m glad it’s us too.” He said.

Crassus watched them. They were roughly the same size but all tangled together, Mav looked bigger and he was still idly petting on Ailuros’ fringe. He wondered if it wasn’t Mav that actually felt sweet for the boy, it sure seemed that way. He felt a little like a third wheel on his end of the couch.

Mav poked his arm with a talon. “Hey, you must have some vids on your omnitool, yeah? You sister’s still a kid, right?”

“Ah… She’s fourteen,” He said, his mandibles working along his jaw a little in confusion.

“That’s a kid.” Mav said. “You got vids on there or what, big guy?”

“I do, yes.” He said.

“So queue a couple up.” He spelled out. “Two or three should give Ailuros plenty of time to relax.”

Crassus nodded his head after a moment and shifted so he sat closer to the both of them.

“I’m so for this idea,” Ailuros giggled. “But this would be way more comfortable in the bed.”

“Y’know,” Mav chuckled. “It definitely would be. C’mon you two.”


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

“Mav,” Crassus called over his shoulder. “I’ve got a distress signal coming in.”

“Let me see.” Mav climbed over the back of the co-pilot’s chair and leaned forward to check the readout himself. “That’s one of our signals.”

“Hierarchy?” He admittedly hadn’t spent much time in cockpits in general to know every intricate signal. He knew enough to recognize a generic distress call but not the specificity of them.

“Undercover Blackwatch special.” He explained, tones deadpan. “Hell, that’s Fiend’s call sign. Set a course, big guy. We’re needed.”

Crassus set the course as Mav headed back to get into his armor. After a moment’s thought, he put the ship into auto-pilot and went to do the same. He got to their room right as Mav was wiggling into his under-suit.

“Any idea what we can expect?”

“I read the signal same as you, big guy.” Mav grumbled, fighting with the pieces of his armor as he snapped them into place. “Could be engine trouble, could be a fight, could be Fiend’s dead in the water and needs a tow.”

He flicked his mandibles. “I’m sure you know but this is my first non-ground-side posting. A distress signal out here has larger meaning than a distress signal on the ground.”

“Space make you nervous, big guy?” The smaller turian teased.

“Of course it does.” Crassus flared his mandibles at him. “Especially after you told me you died out there.”

“That was an accident. A shitty accident, mind you, but with any luck there’ll be no space walk for either of us.” Mav said and sealed up the piece of armor that protected his throat. “We’ll dock with Fiend’s ship, you’ll stay on board while I check it out-”

“Shouldn’t we check it out together?”

“Hell, if we do that and there’s pirate shit goin’ on, you’ll get my ship stolen or worse. That’d really piss me off. Nah, you stay on board ‘til I give the all clear and then we’ll go from there. But comin’ outta the gate I’m gonna treat Fiend’s ship as hostile area cuz for all we know it is.”

“Ah… Right.” Crassus paused with his own armor. The suggestion had been a foolish one. Mav was right about the possibility and the probability of it. “Right.”

“Still put your armor on.” Mav ordered. “All of it.”

…

The shuttle was all by itself and without external signs of damage. It ruled out a pirate attack but Mav still ordered him to stay in the cockpit while he boarded it. Crassus watched the feed from his body-cam. The smaller turian put his hand to the wall as he left the hangar, fingers splayed and the flashlight on his armor illuminating it.

“Ship is silent,” He reported. “I’m waitin’ for my omnitool to connect to the ship’s systems… and it’s not.” Mav sighed. “Dead in the water like I thought. Escape pod is still here though.”

Mav turned and the feed showed Crassus the escape pod still docked with some residual power lighting it up on the outside. The emergency strips along the floor were still lit as welll which meant at least back-up power was still coursing through the ship.

“I’m gonna head to the cockpit first. Maybe Fiend locked herself in there when the ship went dark.”

“Understood,” Crassus said and took a moment to look at their own ship’s readouts as it struggled to connect. “I’m still not getting any readings from inside Fiend’s ship at all.”

“Last I knew, she had a nifty little stealth driver installed. Makes the damn thing invisible to almost everythin’. For all my ship knows, there’s an emergency beacon plopped down in the middle of space and nothin’ else here.” 

“Can you disconnect it?”

“I don’t think Fiend would like me much if I did that,” Mav chuckled. He reached the cockpit door. It was shut. “Fuckin’ thing’s sealed tighter than a pyjack’s asshole. No power runnin’ through it so I can maybe...”

Crassus watched him stick his fingers between the frame and the rubber seal and battle for leverage against it. It shouldn’t have worked at all but slowly the door began to slide open. He drew his mandibles in.

“Well I didn’t have to hack it so that’s a win in my book,” Mav muttered. “But shit, no air displacement or pressure is bad. Life support has to be down too.”

“It shouldn’t be if the emergency power is on.”

“Not if it’s the secondary. That’s focused solely on the escape pod and strip lighting. See?” Mav pointed and turned in a slow circle so his body-cam picked up everything in the cockpit. “It’s fuckin’ dark in here and quiet too. I don’t see any sign of Fiend.”

“Then get the blackbox and finish searching the ship so you can get off it.” Crassus told him.

“Yes sir, big guy, sir.” Mav shot back. “Like that weren’t my exact plan. I’m takin’ that stealth driver too.”

Crassus rubbed his eyes and sighed deeply through his nose. Mav should be taking their discovery a little more seriously. Ships didn’t just stop working and shut down with no sign of their crew or outward damage at random.

“What the fuck.”

“Mav?” He couldn’t see anything on the body-cam but for general outlines. “Mav?”

“Fiend was chasin’ a distress signal too.” He said.

Ships didn’t just shut down in the middle of space… “Mav, get off the ship.”

“I fuckin’ am, don’t yell at me.” Mav snapped and Crassus could see him shoving the blackbox into the bag he’d brought with him. “I’m swingin’ by the engine room.”

“Forget that, you need to-”

“You need to quit tellin’ me what to do cuz you’re freakin’ out. I’m freaked out and pissed ‘bout it. Fiend was followin’ _my_ distress signal. _Mine_. I ain’t put out no distress signal.”

Crassus’ mandibles fell loosely along his jaw. “Spirits,” He breathed.

“You’re makin’ me freak out more, yeah? Don’t need that right now.” Mav growled. “Keep your eyes on our ship’s sensors. We can look at my cam’s recordin’ later. I wanna know if anyone’s tryin’ to sneak up on us.”

“Understood,” He said again and tore his attention away from the feed to focus on all their ship’s readings. It all looked fine, there were no proximity warnings, no strange signals of any kind. The ship was running as it should be and they were alone. Crassus looked out the view-port to be certain but they were indeed alone. Still, he couldn’t relax in the slightest with Mav out there on his own.

“I’ve found Fiend.” Mav’s voice was quiet through the comm link. “And fuckin’ hell, look at all she did in here. Her gun’s so overheated it melted into her hand.”

The turian woman was propped against the remains of a blown-apart drive core, head tipped down toward her chest at an angle exposing the hole there. Like something huge had reached into her chest and torn everything out. The wound wasn’t wet anymore. Mav had to be knelt right in front of her for the body-cam pick up so much detail. Crassus swallowed hard.

“Fuckin’ hell, Fiend...” He muttered. “Crassus. Look.”

Mav held up a long, bulky chunk of metal, dark gray with a stripe of dirty yellow and dried blood. Fiend’s talons and bullets had left deep furrows in it but it was still unmistakably a Geth arm.


	13. Chapter 13

Mav dropped the Geth arm on the kitchen table and stood there with one hand on his hip and the other holding his gun. “I’m gonna shoot it if it moves,” He said. “Fuck I might shoot it just cuz. Fiend was a friend and this _muthafucker_ …” He took a long, deep breath, talons tapping out a beat on his hip.

Crassus leaned against the wall well away from the arm. He vividly recalled the way the one on the outpost had twitched and writhed. He would shoot this one too if it moved. “You said Fiend was following your distress signal?”

“Somehow,” He muttered, eyes glued to the arm and mandibles tight to his jaw. “Every headin’ operative has a distinct, personalized signal. You rise up the ranks, you’ll get one too. But she was following mine. I’ve never even _used_ mine before.”

“…So what’s it mean that she was following a… a copy of yours?” He asked.

“I dunno what it means exactly.” Mav said, tapping his talons again. “But I know what it implies. Someone got ‘hold of my signal and who knows whose all else. There’s eight, er no, seven headin’ operatives in this sector and we’ve been compromised. And there’s fuckin’ Geth. I dunno which worries me more.”

Crassus huffed. He knew which worried him more. If their identities were compromised, that meant Taren could possibly be in danger, as well as the families of the other operatives. And who knew how far the compromise stretched, how wide or high or who all it included. “We can’t report this…” He said slowly.

Mav met his eyes. “I’m honestly surprised we’re on the same page here.” He said after a moment. “Nah, nah we can’t report this to the Hierarchy at all. But we ain’t up shit creek.”

“No? Are you sure?” He couldn’t keep the exasperation from his tones. Didn’t Mav take anything seriously?

“You forgettin’ my sorta uncle is a Spectre, big guy?” Mav flashed his teeth. “We’ve got Geth and a probable conspiracy. I think that warrants Spectre involvement.” He paced around the table. “I’m gonna sit in the cockpit to watch our shit while I call him. He’ll want to see the shuttle and Fiend for himself, so we’ll stay put for now. You keep your eye and your gun on that fuckin’ thing.”

…

He stayed at his spot against the wall, so tense and still that his spine hurt but he didn’t dare move in case he missed the arm doing the same. Would it move? Twitch? Spontaneously grow the rest of the Geth it had been torn from? All seemed entirely possible to Crassus. Was the smoke he smelled wires readying for solder or Mav’s cigarettes? Spirits…

Mav appeared so suddenly beside him that Crassus could only sag against the wall as adrenaline flooded him. “Spirits. Now isn’t a good time to be sneaking around.”

“Wasn’t sneakin’.” He muttered, drawling off his cigarette. “Saren’s on his way to us. He wasn’t far.”

“That’s good at least.”

“Means he’s been tailin’ me again.” Mav said.

“He’s looking after you. As family should.” Crassus said simply.

“He’s not family.” The smaller turian said but his voice was soft and quiet, as if it was just something he was used to saying but didn’t truly feel.

Crassus observed him a moment and tried to do so objectively. Mav’s chest rose and fell rapidly, he was pale and sweaty and he looked moments away from collapse. If it was the larger implications of the signal or the Geth or seeing a friend so horribly killed, Crassus didn’t know, but Mav was clearly shaken.

“You should rest.” He suggested with care. “I’ll keep my eye on this…thing and wake you when the Spectre gets here.”

Mav rubbed his eyes and scraped hands over his fringe. “Y’know, I think I will have a rest.”

“I honestly expected you to argue.” Crassus confessed, his mandibles giving a little flick.

“I’m too fuckin’ tired to argue with you.” The smaller turian muttered. “And I’m gonna need my head sharp when Saren gets here. Hold the fort down, big guy, I’ll see you in forty.”

…

Closer to an hour later, Crassus waited with Mav in the hangar as the Spectre docked his ship. He’d taken off his armor to nap and his gun hung from an old-fashioned holster on his hip. The Spectre eyed him up and down as he came through the bay doors.

“You’ve gotten thinner.” He said by way of greeting.

Mav flared his mandibles. “You say the nicest things.”

The Spectre gave a slight flick to his mandibles and faced Crassus. “I’ve made time to read your dossier, Agent Sativum.”

Crassus swallowed, every time a superior had said that to him, it hadn’t been followed by anything positive. “And?”

“You don’t possess the clearance needed for the conversation I must have with Mavic.”

“I’m not keepin’ secrets from my partner.” Mav said. “Let me worry ‘bout his clearance or lack thereof.”

“Have you already shared the information I gave you?” The Spectre turned back to him.

The small turian shrugged. “Nah, but we were workin’. I’ll catch him up while you take your look at Fiend’s ship.”

“Which you expect me to do now.” The Spectre flicked his mandibles in that slight way again.

“I think you shoulda had the foresight to check it before you docked with me.” Mav drawled, challenge in his tones.

“The dead are of no concern to me.” Saren gave him a droll stare.

“Is that why you left the Alliance soldiers to rot in the open air?” Crassus asked him, for a moment feeling a flare of indignation for the other Blackwatch agent and for the humans on that outpost. What kind of person didn’t afford respect to the dead? “Did you even alert their High Command? Their embassy?”

“To what end?” The Spectre asked in return.

“Big guy, I didn’t notify anyone either.” Mav said beside him. “I hate to agree with Saren but… yeah, to what end?”

Crassus stared at him. “All species have a right a death ritual. Humans, I believe choose to be buried in the ground…” The practice of which baffled him. How did you release the Spirit if you entrapped the shell in soil? He supposed humans had their own beliefs about it, but turians had always burned their dead.

Mav and the Spectre glanced at each other. “There’s mass graves on Shanxi full of turian bodies.” The smaller turian said. “The humans didn’t observe our death rituals, why should we observe theirs?”

“The war’s been over for almost three decades.” He said, albeit a little feebly. Mav and the Spectre both had lost their families during the Relay 314 Incident, and he knew Mav at least still carried the anger and resentment.

“No, Agent Sativum, the treaty has been in effect for almost three decades.”

His mandibles fluttered, that wasn’t the same thing at all. “Mav, I thought you said you cared about the humans. We should contact their embassy and tell them what happened on that outpost. They deserve to know.” Crassus tried to appeal to that sense of right and wrong that burned in the Spirit of every turian.

“I care ‘nough ‘bout the humans not to shoot one on sight.” Mav scoffed and then he sighed long. “Big guy, I agree their people deserve to know, yeah? You can think I don’t, but I do. But now, with what we found on Fiend’s ship, with what it might mean, I can’t risk the contact. Not for myself, not for you, not for some greater sense of… whatever you wanna call it. Hell, I ain’t even written the report yet and I’m glad I haven’t.”

“Nor will you write a report. Either of you.” The Spectre said with a note of finality. “Mavic, I should like to see the Geth arm you recovered.”

He watched Mav lead the Spectre from the hangar with his head low and his mandibles working against his jaw. The right thing to do wasn’t supposed to change with perspective, Mav had even insisted that it didn’t, but apparently the sentiment didn’t extend to the humans they had found.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Saren held the Geth arm like a regular piece of machinery and not the representation of thousands of entities it was. He turned it every which way, looked at it from every angle and even went so far as to pull and tug at the exposed wires. “A Geth attack with a singular Geth is… unusual.”

Mav scratched his fringe next to him. “There’s no such thing as an individual Geth and I’ve never heard of one workin’ alone. Er, that’s to say, physically alone. Hell, I’ve never seen just one Geth before.”

“Nor have I.” The Spectre hummed. He let the arm simply drop back to the table and Crassus cursed under his breath when the noise of it made him jump. The Spectre pinned him with ice colored eyes. “Your partner is very tensely wound, Mavic.”

“I’m pretty tensely wound too. It comes with the job.” Mav snorted. “And a Geth arm on my kitchen table.”

“You should do something about that tension.”

Mav looked up at him and his mandibles fluttered. “Er… no. I have an...outlet for tension. The big guy here just needs some sleep and he’ll be fine.”

The Spectre gave him a nasty look. “I meant sparring, for the record, not another visit to that… that house of ill repute. Or your bedding down with another partner.”

“Spirits, Saren. I ain’t havin’ that conversation with you again.” Mav laughed but it was tinged with bone deep annoyance. “I wanna know ‘bout the fuckin’ Geth arm on my table.”

A long moment of silence stretched. Mav looked at the Spectre with his mandibles flared while he stood there indifferently. Crassus felt like he was hovering needlessly, as though he were standing beside two peoples whose language he didn’t speak while his translator filtered him the proper words out of order. There wasn’t anything he could add to the conversation. Mav and the Spectre both knew more than they were saying but neither seemed willing to really tell him anything.

“It’s the arm of a Destroyer unit.” The Spectre finally said.

Mav rubbed his eyes. “A Destroyer unit stands almost fourteen feet high,” He said. “There’s no way one woulda fit in Fiend’s ship, not standin’ up and able to attack.”

“I agree.” The Spectre said. He gestured to the arm. “The connective components of the arm appear to be cut and not severed.”

Crassus looked between them. “Meaning?”

Mav cursed again and pulled his cigarettes from his pocket. “Meanin’ the arm wasn’t yanked off in a fight or otherwise harshly removed.” He stuck one in his mouth and lit it. “It was… fuck, I’d say surgically removed if it were organic but...”

“For all intents and purposes, that is an apt description.” The Spectre reached to take the cigarette away from Mav but the smaller turian batted his hand aside and moved out of reach.

Crassus sat down, his mandibles back to fluttering again. “You’re saying that someone, possibly Fiend, intentionally removed the Geth’s arm with precision?”

“Would Fiend be capable of this, Mavic?”

“I’ve never seen Fiend come against a machine she couldn’t hack.” Mav said. “But… but Geth are a little different than locks and drones and all the usual shit. And Fiend’s cautious, I dunno why she’d ever think to take a Geth arm, let alone a Destroyer arm. She’s very risk and benefit, and this-” he pointed to the arm “-is a lotta risk. Hell, Saren, she’s got a hole where her chest was. That’s… it’s just not like her. She wouldn’t be fuckin’ ‘round with Geth.”

The Spectre nodded his head. “Then we shall rule Fiend out.” He said and took the seat across from Crassus. “Which other operatives are in this sector?”

Mav paced a tight loop. “You’ve got me and the big guy as one. Fiend was one.” He took a long drag and groaned. “Er… fuck… Murine is out here, Caprice, Oneiric, Beacon...”

“There should be seven of you.” The Spectre said.

“I’m thinkin’,” Mav snapped. “I’ve only seen the guy once, never even talked to him. Fuck is his name?… Nival. He’s called Nival.”

Crassus counted the call-signs as Mav spoke. “I make eight.”

“You don’t count, big guy.” The smaller turian said as he tossed the cigarette at the sink. “You’re my replacement.”

He blinked, his brow furrowed. “I wasn’t aware of that.”

“You weren’t supposed to be.”

“Oh.”

The Spectre took the Geth arm in hand again before Crassus could start to dwell on that information. “Of you seven, who is capable?”

Mav tapped his talons on his hip. “Caprice, Oneiric and Nival, possibly, are capable.”

“Why not Beacon or Murine?”

“Neither one of them are in combative roles out here.” He shrugged. “Both are goin’ from stations and outposts and back and forth. Beacon’s posin’ as a doctor and Murine a laborer. Both of ‘em are feedin’ back relative info to the mission at large. The rest of us were tasked with takin’ the fight to the pirates and Lords by whatever means.”

“Do you have contact with any of them?” The Spectre asked.

“Er… not as such.” Mav rubbed over his fringe. “We run into each other, sure. I run into Beacon more than anyone. Caprice and I have crossed paths a few times, same with Oneiric. Nival, I saw just the once. He’s a skittish little shit. He made me for who I was and high-tailed it.”

The Spectre pulled his mandibles in. “You’ve let too much of your reputation go before you.”

“You’re one to talk, Saren.” Mav shot back. “Really.”

“My position has a certain… prerequisite.”

“Oh whatever.” The smaller turian flopped into the seat beside Crassus. “Never-mind, yeah? Geth is a problem, but it’s your problem. That distress signal? That’s my problem.”

The Spectre leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. “One of you compromised the rest of you. As Fiend was following your signal and you following hers, you’re both unlikely to be the source. Again it’s a matter of who is capable of replicating the signals.”

Mav groaned again and rubbed at his eyes. “I’ve never used my signal, not once.”

“Then you’re looking for a capable person with direct contact to you and to Fiend.” The Spectre said like it was simple, and in a way, it was.

“Beacon.” He said. “He’s the only one who likely has semi-regular contact with all of us.”

“Then your next course of action will be to pay Beacon a visit.”

“Yeah,” Mav sighed. “I reckon it will be.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter but the next one will be very soon and it's where this fic earns its rating.

Chapter 15

Crassus gave a long sigh as he watched Fiend’s ship collapse in on itself. Saren had done that after leaving with the Geth arm in a sealed and locked case. Next to him in the pilot’s seat, Mav dropped his cigarette into a cup of water and cleared his throat.

“I know it bothers you.” He muttered. “If there was a way to properly honor Fiend out here, I’d’ve seen to it. She was my friend, big guy, and that wasn’t any way to die.”

“What was her real name?” He asked rather than talk about death rituals again. He could hear that he meant what he said.

“Tethys.” Mav hummed. “She er… She was great. A good soldier, a good person. She used to tease me somethin’ fierce ‘bout my busted up mandible. I’d tease her ‘bout her pink paint.”

Crassus smiled faintly. “What happened to your mandible anyway?”

“Saren pushed me outta tree when we were kids.” He said.

He glanced at Mav and saw his eyes still glued out the view-port and the remains of the ship. “That can’t be the reason you hate him.”

“Hate him?” Mav snorted. “Nah, nah I don’t hate him. Hell, he didn’t even mean to push me, I know that, he just couldn’t control his biotics yet.” He scraped a hand over his fringe. “Me and him… it’s weird. Desolas raised us like brothers even though Saren’s technically my uncle. Which is also weird, believe me. We’re just… I reckon, the more I think on it, the more I see we’re too alike so we can’t help but needle each other. A little like sibling rivalry. You must have that with Taren, yeah?”

Crassus shifted in his chair and thought about it. “Not to the same extent, no.” He said. “Taren’s the best Sativum to be born, better than me in any case... She’s kind, she’s wickedly intelligent, and of course I worry about her and of course I pick on her, but it’s nothing like what you have with Saren.”

“Ah well, maybe it’s just me that’s weird.” He flashed his teeth in a grin and when Crassus snorted a laugh, he laughed too.

He let a few moments pass before he approached what he’d been wanting to but certainly not with the Spectre still aboard. “It’s a… big surprise to learn I’m going to be your replacement.”

Mav fluttered his mandibles. “I wasn’t gonna tell you for a while.” He confessed. “My plan was to run with you ‘bout a year, help you make some connections out here, and then leave, I reckon.”

“Do you already have another posting scheduled?”

He shook his head. “Nah, but nobody stays in the Terminus long. This place makes you jaded.” He laughed again. “I mean, I was jaded before I got here but all the same, y’know?”

Crassus flicked his mandibles at him. That was definitely a word he’d use to describe Mav. He could admit to himself that he didn’t want to end up that way, too. “I’d rather not stay out here long at all.”

“You probably won’t.” Mav told him. “Right now, it’s all gonna depend on what Beacon has to say. Or one of the others, I reckon. This thing with the Geth is a concern, sure, but our signals gettin’ jacked is a little more immediate, a little more far-reachin’, at least at the moment.” He sighed long. “Tomorrow, we’ll start headin’ in his direction and from there, I dunno yet, we’ll just have to see how shit plays out.”

He sat there in the silence with Mav a little longer. There was nothing left of Fiend’s ship, nor any sign that it had ever been there, and the Spectre was long gone too. It left Crassus to simply observe the stars. Terminus space looked like everywhere else he’d ever been; just a smattering of stars and other celestial things amid a lot of empty black. Cold, empty and vast with millions of light-years between each little speck of brightness. He thought of dying out there like Mav had and had to look away.

“Did you ask for me specifically?” He asked.

“I did,” The smaller turian told him and nodded his head once. He was still looking out the view-port.

“Why?”

“Does it matter?” Those orange eyes burned like little suns when he turned them Crassus’ way.

“Not really.” He relented. Truthfully, he didn’t think he wanted to know Mav’s reasoning.

…

Late into the night, Crassus felt the ship’s drive-core kick to life under his feet during his work out. He sat the weights aside, sipped his water and stretched. In the cockpit, Mav was bent over the controls and almost hidden in smoke.

“What’s going on?”

“I just got a call,” Mav growled lowly, a cigarette poking out of his mouth and very nearly only the filter of it was left. “There’s a Terminus Lord at the brothel.”

“I’m sure Terminus Lords frequent the brothel as often as you do.” He said at length, not all that sure why Mav was pushing the ship so hard to accelerate.

“Not with the intention of killing the proprietor and taking the pets into slavery.” He hissed dryly.

Crassus’ mandibles pulled in tight to his jaw. “Wait, you’re saying a real slaver is at the brothel and-”

“Baast bled out before he could give me all the details, but they need help.” Mav flipped a few switches and smacked his hand down on the haptic interface. The ship lurched again. “C’mon dammit!”

“Mav…”

“If you tell me this is outside our jurisdiction to do anythin’ ‘bout I’ll toss you out the airlock ‘long the way.” He snarled without looking at him, completely focused on the ship’s output and how hard he could push it to go faster.

Crassus believed he would… But that wouldn’t be necessary. “I was going to tell you to divert power from the backup systems to the drive-core. It will give the engine enough power for a little while to jump us forward.”

Mav slid his hand over the interface and this time when the ship lurched forward, it was a much smoother action. “Keep us going.” He ordered as he got up. “I need to prepare.”

He took the pilot’s seat, watching Mav out the corner of his eye. He’d never seen him so furious.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note for Chapter: A Terminus Lord/Lady is a slave trader of note. A Master/Mistress isn’t always a Terminus Lord/Lady, but Terminus Lord/Lady is always a Master/Mistress. Species is unimportant. And in case I failed to make it clear, a pet is a sex worker in fetish brothels. A Master/Mistress may take a pet and then that makes them a sex slave. Which is why Mav has such a problem with it. At the brothel it's fine bc it's just a game, a play on Dom/sub and that's okay. When a real Lord/Lady /Master/Mistress gets involved, it's no longer a game and that's not okay. Hope that clears some things up.

Chapter 16

Mav had told him to refuel the ship. To wait across the street from the brothel and let thirty minutes pass. Refueling the ship had taken a little more than the allotted thirty minutes. The door of the brothel stood ajar and he smelled the blood long before he saw it, a swath on the wall and across the floor. It was clear someone had been slammed into the wall, killed, and then dragged aside somewhere. Crassus nudged the door shut with his heel and then advanced with his side-arm drawn.

The first body he stepped over had had its throat cut so deeply that he could see hints of bone. The second had been gutted. Blood was thick on the floor, squelching under his boots with each step. Of the bodies he encountered, none had been killed cleanly as agents were taught to do. No enemy was meant to suffer, only to die quickly and cleanly. He couldn’t believe Mav had done all of that on his own and so brutally.

The majority of bodies he found were mercenaries, or rather he guessed, the Lord’s soldiers. Poorly armored and armed and probably poorly trained as well, Mav had literally cut through them. Other, older bodies were those of pets or patrons he’d glanced on his few visits to the brothel himself. Baast lay just inside another doorway, a gun not far from his hand. He’d taken a few of the Lord’s soldiers with him in his last stand, but it hadn’t been enough. Not all the blood surrounding him was old and dried. Mav must have used the doorway as a bottleneck too before pushing his way forward.

Crassus swallowed down rising discomfort, willed his heart to slow and continued on. He heard raised voices as he got closer and closer to the lounge area. Mav’s thick with his accent and anger, and a second: pained and weak and panicked. An agonized scream rang through the halls, followed by a strange, heavy silence, and then Mav’s laugh before another screamed spurred Crassus to keep going.

What Mav had done in the lounge… Spirits, it was difficult for Crassus to take in the details and as his eyes scanned the room, he knew that was for the better. Bodies and viscera and blood...Objectively that was all he needed to know. That Mav had massacred everyone in the room was secondary, that he hadn’t used his guns but his knives was unimportant. He’d killed everyone and left them where they fell. The Terminus Lord he was hitting over and over, a knife in his closed fist but angled sideways, sometimes connecting and sometimes not…

And in an instant, Mav had turned and sent that knife sailing in his direction. How it missed him, Crassus couldn’t say, but it had, if only by millimeters. “Mav!”

The smaller turian lowered his arm and turned back to the Terminus Lord to hit him again. Crassus approached slowly, his gun lowered but ready. When Mav had looked at him there hadn’t been any true recognition on his face, just an assessment of threat and that was almost more worrisome than the fact that he was punching a corpse over and over. Whatever features the Lord had had before Mav had gotten a hold of him where nothing short of a ruin now, red and raw and fleshy and dripping. It was hard to tell from the head alone what species he had been.

“Mav.” Crassus said again and moved cautiously closer until he stood just behind him. “Mav, you can stop. He’s dead.”

His fist was raised for another strike but he lowered it slowly and climbed off the Lord. Mav cleared his throat and spat on him too. “Fuckers were waitin’ for me,” He rasped and stretched, rolling his shoulders. “Had no idea who I was though.”

“I’d say they probably weren’t expecting this level of… retaliation.” Crassus murmured and tried his hardest to keep his voice even and level. Spirits, Mav was drenched in blood from his fringe to his feet and there was no telling what, if any, was his. “Are you hurt at all?”

“Probably,” The smaller agent muttered. “C’mon, anyone left will be down the wing behind the bar and I haven’t seen Ailuros yet at all. I need to make sure he’s okay.”

“Just hold on a second,” He said and reached for Mav’s arm to keep him from moving, closing his hand around him carefully. The fabric of his shirt was hot and sticky. “You don’t want him to see you like this, do you? You’ll scare the poor kid.”

“Like what?” Mav asked, his voice void of every tone.

“Mav you’re… you’re literally soaked in blood and… a lot else.” Crassus let his arm go and yanked free a fairly clean table cloth. It was all he could think of to grab. “Let me at least clean your face, alright?”

“Oh. Yeah, sure.” His voice was still flat and somehow that was more unnerving than the way he’d gotten covered in blood.

Crassus took his time wiping Mav’s face clean and tried to read him. After what the smaller turian had done, he didn’t know what to say to him, didn’t know how to acknowledge that Mav’s breathing was slow. That the pulse he’d felt in his wrist had been slow too. As if Mav had done nothing more strenuous or emotionally involved than taking out some trash. As if he hadn’t just systematically murdered a whole regiment of slaver-owned soldiers and beaten their leader to death all single-handedly. Was it a normal degree of violence for Mav or had he gone overboard? Had he done something like this before? Did the Blackwatch know Mav could achieve this level of brutality? Crassus had no answers and only more and more questions… So he just cleaned the blood off as best he could. “Alright, that’s as good as it’s going to get… Do you want to go yourself?”

Mav shook his head. “No, I need you to watch my back. I coulda missed someone.”

“I don’t think you did,” He said quietly. Spirits, Mav wasn’t even blinking. “But I’ll come with you anyway.”

“Yeah,” He said and turned on his heel.

He seemed to know where he was going, Crassus could only follow him down the long hallway behind the bar. All the doors were missing from the rooms and a glance into each one showed him a pet in less than favorable condition. The Terminus Lord and his men had been at all of them in one way or another and Crassus’ stomach stiffened into a tight knot at the sight. Despite his method, Mav may have done the right thing and he was convinced of that even more when they stopped at Ailuros’ room.

The sandy-plated turian had been beaten badly and probably worse, pale and whimpering on a little bed that was stained with blood. “Please… please...”

“Ailuros,” Mav’s voice was chocked and tight as he knelt down where the pet could see him. “Baby, it’s me. It’s Mavi.”

“Mavi?”

“Yeah, baby.” Crassus watched him lift a hand as if to touch Ailuros’ fringe only to let it fall. “You’re gonna be okay, yeah? All of you are. I’ll call some people and they’ll come take care of you all, make you feel better.”

“The master won’t-”

“I killed the master.” Mav told him. “I killed him and all his men.”

“You did?” The boy sounded disbelieving.

“We did, Ailuros. Every single one of them.” Crassus tried to reassure him.

“The other masters will come here now,” Ailuros whimpered as he writhed with some flare of pain. “They’ll come here and hurt us all for that. They’ll find you and kill you, Mavi.”

“Shh, shh...” Mav did lightly stroke his fringe now. “Nah, they won’t. I’ll be here and when I’m not, I’ll be watchin’. I’ll keep all of you safe, baby.”

“You’re just a mercenary. You can’t keep us all safe.”

“I’m not a mercenary. Neither’s the big guy. We’re Blackwatch and we really can keep you all safe. Okay? I’m gonna start with gettin’ you feelin’ better. Crassus, go find a med-kit.”

Crassus inclined his head and backed away. He didn’t know that a single med-kit would be enough, in fact he strongly doubted it, but he would get one anyway. The other pets cautiously peaked out of their rooms, stared at him like he was just another soldier here to bring ruin and he fluttered his mandibles. Ailuros was right, even with the Terminus Lord dead, they couldn’t possibly protect all these people… But it didn’t mean they weren’t going to try and Mav had already spilled the truth.

“I’m with the Blackwatch.” He announced. “And I’m here to help.”

…

Mav sat with his back against Ailuros’ bed, his head resting on it and his eyes glued to the ceiling. The boy had been completely covered with a soiled sheet and was utterly still beneath it.

Crassus opened his mouth to say something but no words came to mind. _I’m sorry_ seemed so meaningless and everything else was just as empty. He waited for Mav to notice him. Long minutes passed before the smaller turian took a deep breath and got to his feet.

“We’re gonna patch up who we can,” He said, his voice still that same, empty drawl. “And I’m gonna offer safe passage to whoever wants it. You got a problem with any of that?”

He shook his head. “No, of course not.”

Mav cleared his throat a few times and looked back at the bed. “When it’s all said and done, we’re gonna take him to Palaven to burn.”

“Of course.” Crassus agreed.

“And I’m gonna drink myself stupid.” His mandibles wobbled ever so slightly when they faced each other again.

“I’ll watch your back while you do.”

Mav nodded sharply and walked past him out into the hall, grabbing the med-kit from his hand as he did. Crassus murmured a quick prayer to the Spirits for Ailuros, for himself, and for Mav.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Mav had left his ruined clothes in a trail to the bathroom and kicked his boots off to join them. Crassus hoped he had another pair because they were just as ruined as the clothes. He picked everything up with gloves on his hands and stuffed it into a trashbag. The whole mess he threw off the ship and then waited for Mav. They needed a serious conversation about what he’d done and how he had done it. Crassus felt he needed to report it to someone higher up the chain of command than even their direct superior. Maybe he even needed to tell the Spectre but he didn’t know what that would do. Familial ties aside, Spectres weren’t held to the same regulations as Blackwatch or anyone else. And if Crassus were perfectly honest with himself, Mav’s scorched earth response at the brothel and then his numb reaction had scared him. What sort of man was capable of all that and then just came home to shower?

“Hey big guy?” Mav called and finally there was a little inflection to his voice, a little more than that empty, zombified tone.

Crassus shook his head clear of worries and suspicions and the cloying sense of fear. He peaked into the bathroom. “What?”

The smaller turian was mostly cleaned up and sitting naked on the closed toilet lid with a med-kit opened and rummaged through beside him. As well as a half empty glass bottle with the cap haphazardly placed on top. “I’m er… I’ve got a bullet in me that’s gotta come out. Thought I could get it myself but I can’t see what I’m doin’.”

He glanced at that bottle. “Are your eyes crossed yet?” He drawled and grabbed the med-kit.

Mav chuckled lowly. “Blood loss and booze’ll do that, yeah.” He handed Crassus a scalpel and shifted sideways, pointing to a still weeping wound along the arch of his hip. “I can feel it ‘bout here, just under the skin.”

Crassus grabbed out some gauze and antiseptic spray as well as a few other things. “Do you want anything for pain before I start?”

“Nah, I’ve got my horosk.” He muttered. “Just check on my other patch jobs too.” 

Patch job was a good description of what Mav had done to himself. He’d been grazed by half a dozen shots at least, sported a couple of through-and-throughs in non-vital places and someone had gotten him good with a knife a few times too. All of it he’d smeared medigel on or liquid stitch or actual stitches in a few places. And then there was the bullet embedded in his skin.

“You look like you went through a well-armed blender.” Crassus muttered as he wiped the spot with antiseptic.

“Makes you feel better, don’t it? All I did, at least I got hurt too.” Mav said and there was almost a hint of criticism in his tones.

He didn’t want to think about how true that might be. “Did you even draw your gun?”

“When I got there, all I heard was screamin’,” He murmured. “Those varren-fuckers hurtin’ the pets there in the worst ways, torturin’ them just cuz. I saw Baast… and I may have lost my cool.”

Crassus put the scalpel to his skin just along the embedded bullet and drew a thin line. “When I was looking for you, the only word I could think of was massacre.” Fresh blood welled up and then began to drip.

Mav took a big swig from the bottle of horosk. “Slaughter. Butchery. Blood-bath. Carnage. Havoc. Mayhem… I can do this all day, I happen to really like word games.”

He met Mav’s eyes, his own stare hard. “Mass murder.”

The smaller turian’s mandibles worked along his jaw. Someone had given him a black-eye and it was starting to swell. “How ‘bout gang rape?” He hissed. “I did what needed to be done. Folks out here just let the slavers do whatever the fuck they please and they don’t do nothin’ ‘bout it. It’s Terminus, they say, it’s just how shit is, but it ain’t right. It ain’t _right_.”

“On principal I don’t disagree with you, it’s not right at all.” Crassus said and pushed a little around the bullet to try to nudge it free. “But-”

“But nothin’.” Mav snapped. “I did it. It’s done. Galaxy’s a little brighter with one less slaver in it and I’m perfectly fine with how I got rid of him. I never kill anybody without a reason and I had a damn fine one.”

He managed to wiggle the bullet out and then began to stitch Mav up. “I’m going to detail it in my reports. All of it. What you did and how you did it, Mav.”

“That’s your right to.” He huffed and drank from the bottle again. “Make sure you put in ‘em that Baast had never even seen Kahje. That Ailuros-” He sucked in a tight breath “-that Ailuros could sing to make the Spirits weep. That the fucker I beat to death was talkin’ ‘bout brinin’ in kids before I knocked his teeth out the back of his skull.”

“By the Spirits, Mav.” Crassus exclaimed breathlessly.

“I did the right thing.” He insisted hotly. “Ain’t nothin’ gonna change my mind ‘bout that.”

“...You could have done the right thing differently,” He murmured as he covered the wound with gauze and tape and just tried not to think about it all. “That’s not how we’re taught to kill.”

Mav’s head bumped his shoulder suddenly as the rest of his body sagged and Crassus hurriedly checked the pulse in his wrist. It was still going strong and it was only the horosk finally taking effect and not the blood loss.

“I coulda taken him away when I had the chance,” He mumbled. “Coulda given him a better life. Big guy, you get a chance to save a pet, you do it and damn everythin’ else.”

Crassus didn’t know what to say to that, his mandibles drawn in tight to his jaw as he checked over the rest of Mav’s wounds. “I’m sorry you lost him.” He said when he was done.

Mav heaved a sigh and just oddly let his head rest on Crassus’ shoulder in such a way that he could feel every breath against his neck. “I am, too.”


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

The clinic where they found Beacon was on a tiny asteroid outpost with an unpronounceable name. It was cobbled together out of a fair number of rundown looking prefabs but in better shape than Crassus would have thought one could be and staffed by more people than he would have reasonably expected. Two or three nurses, not closer to the ten that he spotted and Beacon wasn’t the only doctor making the rounds. He was the only turian though, the rest of the patients and staff either human and batarian with a few krogan milling about. It should have been a nice mixing pot of hate and discontent across species but everyone was behaving themselves. Still, Crassus found his hand resting atop his sidearm and he saw Mav doing the same.

Beacon noticed Mav and dropped a whole tray of instruments in surprise as he backed away from them. “What are _you_ doing here?”

“Me? Well, I was hopin’ you’d maybe be willin’ to restock my med-kits. See, I got in a real bad fight and-”

“A fight? A _fight_? By all the Spirits Mav there’s a price on your head for what you did!” Beacon hissed at him, his eyes wide and his mandibles flared as he bent to pick up the tools of his trade. He never took his eyes off Mav.

“That was fast.” Mav tapped his talons on the butt of his gun. “How much?”

“Enough to build an actual clinic and have plenty left over to retire comfortably.”

“Careful now, talkin’ like that makes me think you’d sell me up the river. You don’t want me to think that, Argos.” Mav drawled, his eyes narrowing at the other turian.

Beacon paled at the use of his given name and dropped his tools again, scrambling now to gather them. “No, no of course not. We’re friends, Mav, aren’t we friends?”

“Y’know, I dunno.” The smaller turian hummed. “See, I don’t have a lot of friends to begin with and I’ve lost three of them this week alone. I’m startin’ to think the big guy here might be my only friend and I know he don’t like me much. But you wouldn’t sell me up the river for a little bit of slaver credits, would you, big guy?”

Crassus twitched his mandibles and shook his head. “No, Mav, I wouldn’t.”

“Nah, nah you’re good like that.” Mav nodded his head a few times and took a couple of steps closer to Beacon. “But I’ve got more problems than a price on my head, Argos. I stumbled across Fiend’s ship the other day. You wanna guess what I found?”

Beacon’s shoulders hunched up. “I can’t imagine.”

He took another step. “I found her dead,” He said. “With a hole in her chest as big as me. With a Geth arm at her feet. And that’s really not even what’s got me so upset, Argos. Fiend was followin’ a signal, _my_ signal it so happens. My signal that I’ve never used. Can you imagine why that might rub me the wrong way?”

Beacon sprang up from the floor at the same instant Mav reached for him and Crassus reached to pull his gun from its holster. The two struck out at each other but it was the smaller turian that fell back clutching at his neck.

“You fucker!” He hissed and stumbled on his feet. “What’d you jab me with?”

Beacon held both hands up at chest level, one empty and one holding a hypo-syringe. “Just a sedative!” He yelped. “Just a sedative! By the Spirits, Mav you bring nothing but trouble and I just don’t want any trouble here. This is a safe, neutral space, and I want it to stay that way.”

“Then I’ll drag you outside and beat you.” Mav snarled but already he wobbled on his feet, moving backwards to lean himself against the wall. “Holy fuck, I can’t believe you stuck me with that shit. Big guy, shoot him for me.”

Crassus blinked, looking down the sight of his gun. “He’s one of ours.” He said tightly.

“So shoot him in the leg then.”

He lowered his gun by a degree as Beacon stared at him like he really would shoot and not just to wound. “Drop the syringe and keep your hands where I can see them.”

“You’re no fun, big guy.”

“Thank you, thank you.” The other agent stammered and did as he was told.

“Ah, fuck you, Argos, you sneaky little shit.” Mav muttered and slid down the wall he was leaned against. “That… that is real fast actin’… fuck.”

“It’s meant for krogan,” Beacon told them, his tones almost apologetic but not quite.

“Y’know I’m torn between bein’ proud of myself that you think you needed somethin’ that strong for me, and bein’ pissed that you used it on me.” He said, his head starting to dip toward his chest.

“After what you did, yes, Mav, I think that sedative was needed to contain you.”

“Didn’t come ‘ere to ‘urt you, jus’ to talk.” Mav slurred. “Fuck.”

“Mav?” Crassus knelt beside him, keeping his gun pointed at Beacon and felt around his throat for his pulse. It was slow but strong.

The smaller agent blinked at him, eyes dull and pupils blown wide. “Don’t let nobody kill me, big guy.”

“I won’t.” He promised as Mav’s head tipped down the rest of the way. He stood again, putting his body between the smaller turian and the other agent. “Kick that syringe toward me and then sit on the floor.”

Beacon caught the syringe under his foot and then kicked it over. Crassus kept him pinned with the gun as he picked it up and scanned the label, beyond relieved when he saw that it was just a sedative. He put it in his pocket for safe keeping.

“I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t know for a fact that Mav’s a danger.” He said defensively.

He flicked his mandibles lightly in agreement. “He did only plan to talk to you… As far as I know.” He amended after a moment because he didn’t think one could ever predict Mav’s reactions to things.

“About Fiend? I haven’t seen her in months.” Beacon said.

“I don’t think that matters,” Crassus muttered. “Mav tells me you’re the only agent with semi-regular contact with every operative in the Terminus. That you might potentially be the only one with the knowledge of how to covertly pull that special signal and repurpose it.”

Beacon’s mandibles fluttered. “It… it is something I could do, yes.” He admitted at length. “And yes, I would have the time to do it. At one point or another I’ve treated every operative for injuries. But I didn’t do it. I have no reason to.”

“Not even for money? Your clinic here isn’t exactly top of the line.”

“I wouldn’t sell out my own.” The other agent hissed. “Not even for better equipment or supplies. The clinic makes due, the mercenaries I treat pay well not to be outted or killed on the operating table. And as I told Mav, this is neutral ground in every way. I’m just here to treat sick people.”

Crassus’ mandibles worked along his jaw. Of course he and Mav both had expected denial, but he heard no hint of falsehood in Beacon’s tones. He seemed genuine enough even if he had drugged Mav…

“If not you, with the means and opportunity to do so, then who?” He asked and let it leak into his tones that he didn’t strictly believe Beacon but that he was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

“Oneiric or Nival could.” He said, again at length in a way that made Crassus feel all kinds of suspicious. “But… but I would put my money on Nival before Oneiric. He suffered a severe brain injury some years ago and he’s never been all that right to begin with. Do you understand what I mean?”

“No, I don’t think that I do.”

“I mean that he was always a little odd but he’s outer colony and-” Beacon looked up at him and seemed to just notice that his paint was outer colony “-and I mean no offense by that, just that… well, he’s odd. Very odd. And that was before a mercenary fractured his skull so badly we had to pick pieces of it out of his brain. The last time I happened to treat him, he was showing signs of mental and cognitive deterioration along with paranoia. I reported it, of course I did, but he went to ground.”

Crassus heaved a sigh. “So of course you know no way to contact him.”

The other agent shrugged. “I suppose, you could try to call him, but he won’t answer. And I mean you specifically. He’s terrified of Mav, like most of us are...”

He glanced over his should at Mav passed out against the wall. Chin touching his chest and drooling as he breathed heavily, he couldn’t be called scary. But he was akin to a sleeping varren, just a moment away from destruction.

“What makes you think I’m not as dangerous as he is?” Crassus asked.

Beacon blinked. “You didn’t shoot me when he told you to.” He said and slowly got to his feet, hands still held aloft. Crassus kept him in the sights of his pistol.

“You’re Blackwatch, too.”

“I’m not sure that distinction matters to Mav.” The other agent said. “He doesn’t see enemies or allies, he sees people for what they are, he holds them accountable for their actions regardless of consequences and that’s what makes him so dangerous. If I were you, I’d ask for a different partner because Mav will get you killed in short order.”

Crassus thinned his mandibles along his jaw. “How long until the sedative wears off?”

Beacon’s mandibles fell along his jaw in a resigned way and he wondered if that warning had been genuine, too. “Around two hours for him. He’ll wake roughly; nauseated, disoriented and moody. He might experience some vertigo off and on for a few days. Try to keep him sober for at least a day. Easier said than done, I know, but for his sake, try. And then try to convince him to lay low. The price offered for his head is high but it’s pennies compared to the one for him alive.”


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Mav was an absolute mess when he woke up. Sweaty and trembling, he couldn’t stand on his own for more than a second and walking was out of the question. Even leaning on Crassus, he stumbled over his own feet and nearly fell over more than once.

“Am I tiltin’ to the left? Feel like I’m tiltin’ left.” His words were still a little slurred and slow too but after a half hour of just total nonsense from him, they’d cleared up a lot and were finally actual words.

“You are.” Crassus again tried to straighten him and lead him back to the ship without drawing too much attention to themselves. He’d managed to sneak them out of the clinic fine with Beacon’s help but through the shabby little town was another matter. People noticed. He kept one hand on his gun.

“How ‘bout droolin’? Feel like I’m droolin’.”

“You’re drooling too, yes.” He said.

The smaller turian giggled like a little boy and Crassus almost dropped him in surprise at the sound. “I feel right ridiculous, big guy.”

Crassus sighed in exasperation. “You’re that too,” He muttered.

Mav giggled again. “Spirits, I’m sure. Take me home so I can sleep this shit off.”

“If you could walk some semblance of a straight path, we would already be back at your ship.” He said, again trying to right Mav as he stumbled.

“You’re big ‘nough you could just carry me.” He pointed out.

“Spirit’s sake...” Crassus muttered and shifted side-ways to scoop Mav up in a fireman’s carry, ignoring the high-pitched yelp he earned from the smaller turian. “If you throw up on me, I’ll drop you head first.”

“I won’t, I won’t. Spirits...” Mav clung tightly to his shoulder as he walked, panting loudly. “Not as big a fan of this as I’d thought I’d be… Fuck… fuck, I’m real dizzy, big guy...”

“I can put you down again if you need me to, just say so.” The last thing he wanted was for Mav to throw up on him and to be forced to drop him.

“Nah, nah, my legs feel like fuckin’ noodles, I’ll just embarrass myself.”

“That can’t be a foreign occurrence for you,” Crassus drawled and slowed his walking speed so that Mav might not get too dizzy, even though he hung upside down across his shoulders.

“You mad at me or somethin’?” He asked after a beat. 

“No.”

“You been needlin’ me since I came to.”

“Beacon showed me the price on your head. Several million for your body and a hundred million for your capture.” Crassus told him, his voice tight. “Doesn’t that scare you?”

“There’s been one price or another on me off and on for years, big guy.” Mav snorted. “It’s a little par for the course out here.”

“Beacon took you out in a matter of seconds.” He added. “What if he had been an enemy?”

“You’d have shot him.”

“What if I wasn’t there?” Crassus continued as he reached the docks. “What if you were alone and drugged and helpless? You can’t even stand yet, Mav. How would you expect to fight?”

“Those what ifs will drive you up the wall, big guy.” Mav patted at his chest. “You were there to have my back, it’s okay.”

He slid the smaller turian off his shoulders and set him on his feet in front of the ship. Mav was a little steadier but he still swayed ever so slightly and Crassus felt compelled to keep a hold on him. His shoulders were thick with muscle despite all of him being so small and slight, Mav was built solidly, strongly and fully capable of warfare. Crassus didn’t know where the sudden protectiveness he felt for him was coming from.

“What’s up, big guy?” He asked, looking up at him and those orange eyes were still dull with too large pupils, the effects of the sedative still lingering.

Crassus took a breath to steel himself against his next words. “I agree with your uncle. You need to be more careful with your life. In fact, I suggest you take some time to lay low. A long time, maybe.”

Mav’s mandibles shifted and fluttered and then he laughed that new boyish laugh. “I thought you were gonna tell me you quit.” He said and then dissolved into a fit of giggles as he stumbled a step and caught himself on Crassus’ chest.

“Half the Terminus wants you dead and the other half wants to kill you slowly,” He exclaimed, holding Mav up. “I really don’t see how that’s funny. Particularly not when I take the time to consider how that puts _me_ in danger, too.”

The smaller turian quit his laughing and looked up at him. “I’ve got your back, big guy. Nothin’ gonna happen to you cuz of me.”

Crassus fluttered his mandibles. “Mav… I’m all Taren has. If I knew I was going to be sent to the Terminus with someone like you, I would have begged for anywhere else.”

“Someone like me...” Mav’s expression fell. “That hurts, big guy, that really does.”

“I didn’t mean-”

“I think I’ve got a good idea what you meant.” He pushed off Crassus’ chest and stood on his own, his hands on his hips. “Y’know… I’ve liked you from the start. Fuck, I trusted you from the start. How many folks you think know ‘bout me and Saren? Or that I’m adopted? Or that I really, really wanted Ailuros to run away with me? Fuck, Crassus, I know I give you a lotta shit, but I think ‘bout you as a friend. And you just think ‘bout me like a bloodthirsty killer. That… that sucks.”

It was one of the handful of times Mav had called him by name and Crassus fluttered his mandibles guiltily. He hadn’t known the smaller turian thought about him like that at all, he always seemed so aloof and indifferent. That they might really be friends was something that had never crossed his mind.

“I’m sorry.” He said lamely.

“I don’t want sorry. I want to fuckin’ sleep. If you wanna request a transfer, do it.” Mav told him and stomped into the ship.


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

Taren’s long sigh through Crassus’ earpiece made him feel like he was two inches tall and easily snapped in half. She had a way of making him feel like the younger, more childish sibling with that vaguely disappointed sound. “You need to apologize to him, Crass.” She told him after he’d explained in very limited detail why he hadn’t called her in days. “I mean, you obviously really hurt his feelings.”

“I did apologize,” He said and rubbed at his eyes listlessly. He hadn’t slept much the night before after Mav had basically told him to request a transfer. “I told him I was sorry.”

“Evidently that wasn’t enough if he’s avoiding you.”

“He’s not avoiding me, he’s just doing whatever in the cockpit.” Crassus said.

“Is the door still locked?” She asked.

“It was as of an hour ago.”

“Then he’s avoiding you.” Taren said simply.

“Taren, he’s not a child. He’s got things to do and he clearly wants to be alone to do them.”

“Or he’s sulking because the person he’s been living with for a month pretty much told him they’re not friends. That would hurt my feelings a lot.”

Taren didn’t know the half of it. That Mav had taken his _someone like you_ comment so wrongly. He hadn’t meant to call Mav a bloodthirsty killer in such a backhanded way at all, he’d only meant… Crassus wasn’t sure, but he hadn’t meant that. “But he’s not my friend, Taren, he’s my superior.”

She groaned loudly. “You’re _so_ stupid sometimes, Crass. I mean really. Have you ever had a real friend?”

“Of course I have.” He huffed. “But a superior is-”

“He told you he thought you were friends and you shot him down.” Taren interrupted him. “Even with the proper viewpoint on superior officers or whatever, that was really… a really mean thing to do.”

Crassus sighed loudly and rubbed at his eyes hard. “You’re not wrong, okay? Mav is just...” There was so much he could tell her that would make explaining Mav so much easier, but they weren’t his stories to share. “He’s just different, okay? He’s not really like any commander I’ve ever had, or even like anyone I’ve ever worked with before. He drinks more than is healthy, he cusses like a mercenary, he smokes almost constantly, he’s got a terrible temper and attitude, and he’s so abrasive, Taren. It’s like he’s _trying_ to step on people’s toes just for the reaction he’ll get. And in the field he’s… he’s unstoppable. Truly unstoppable. I saw a bullet graze his helmet and I swear I thought he was dead, but he just stood back up and brushed himself off like it wasn’t a big deal at all. And then he acted like I was childish for worrying he was dead.”

“Like actually worried?”

“Yes, like actually worried.” He said. “He laid in the dirt for a full minute not moving and I legitimately thought he’d been killed. And this last part of our assignment, he was wounded and I had to dig out a bullet while he numbed himself with horosk and made a joke about blood-loss. Or something like that. I just remember him laughing...”

Before he’d talked about Ailuros and wishing he had saved him, then Mav had only sounded… sad. Crassus rubbed at his eyes again. Maybe the abrasiveness was all an act or a bit of self-preservation? He certainly wasn’t the first person to do that.

“Crass, try to talk to him again.” Taren said softly when he’d been silent for too long. “Because it sounds like to me that despite everything, you care about him at least a little.”

“At least a little, yes.” He relented and sighed again. “I’ll talk to him.”

“Maybe give him a hug, too?” She teased just a little.

“Spirits no, I’m not hugging him. He’s the least huggy person I know.” Crassus chuckled at the audacity of it. Hugging Mav, Spirits.

“Just let me know how it goes, okay?”

“I will, promise.”

…

When Crassus finally managed to hack open the cockpit door, smoke literally rolled out over the floor and he could only assume that Mav had smoked cigarette after cigarette again. Like he had last time he’d been so agitated. Crassus coughed and waved his hands through the smoke until he could almost see the smaller turian in the pilot’s seat.

“How do you even breathe?” He demanded.

“With difficulty,” Mav drawled. He was leaned over the controls, pale and drawn looking like he hadn’t slept any either. “Would you bring me another pack outta my stuff?”

“No,” Crassus said and dropped into the other seat. “You look like shit.”

“Been a rough couple of days.” He sighed. “Hell, a rough couple of weeks.”

“I know,” He murmured, looking down at his hands and then glancing at Mav. “I’m sorry.”

Mav snorted and sipped from a bottled water. Crassus was glad to see it was water and not the usual horosk.

“I mean it, Mav.” He said. “You’re going through a lot. Our assignment, losing people, this mess with the Geth and everything else… And then I was an asshole on top of it all.”

“You weren’t an asshole.”

“Maybe not the way that you can be sometimes-”

Mav gave him a scalding look.

“-when the situation calls for it.” Crassus added. “But the situation didn’t call for it from me and I could have certainly been a little more...tactful. I, by no means, meant to call you a bloodthirsty killer.”

“Spirits, big guy.” He groaned. “You’re gonna bring a heavy conversation to me when I don’t have anythin’ to smoke? Now _that’s_ tactless.”

“You smoke a lot.”

“I’m under a lotta stress.” Mav shot back without heat. “And look, I’ve figured out you keep a pretty well defined professional and personal line, yeah? Maybe that took me a little long, and I’m sorry for steppin’ over it with no warnin’ to you.”

Crassus ran a hand back over his fringe and let it rest at the back of his neck. “My sister tells me I shouldn’t have shot you down so hard.”

The smaller turian laughed at that, that strange and new boyish laugh of his that was almost endearing. It was certainly less creepy than his other laugh. “It’s not like I asked you out on a date,” He joked.

“No, you just took me to a brothel.” He deadpanned.

Mav laughed again but it ended in a choked off sort of sound. And then he leaned back in the chair, his eyes covered with his hands and his shoulders shaking. “Ah fuck, big guy.” He said tightly. “That… I… Losin’ him is hittin’ me hard.”

“I know.” Crassus said softly.

“I lost my head doin’ what I did there, I know that.” He continued from behind his hands. “Mayhem is just… Okay, yeah, on an op I can be little scorched earth sometimes but consider what I’m dealin’ with out here. I’m just meetin’ force with equal force, sometimes just a little more. The bastards out here don’t leave me with much choice. But I don’t… Killin’ them don’t make me feel anythin’. I don’t feel powerful, I don’t get off on it, it’s not a thrill. It just somethin’ that’s gotta be done. And I think that’s the distinction between what we do and bloodthirsty killers. I’m doin’ my job well and they’re doin’ it cuz it’s a thrill. And if it ever starts bein’ a thrill, I know I need to back down and out.”

Crassus fluttered his mandibles a little. He thought that was a very finely lined distinction but an apt one. Having fun throwing grenades was one thing: enjoying beating the life out of someone was another. That Mav was willing to acknowledge how he’d lost himself was good too.

Mav dragged his fingers over his face and then crossed his arms over his chest. “I did what I needed to do,” He said quietly. “For Baast and Ailuros and all the others at that brothel. I did what I needed to do but I know I crossed one line or another. So you and me, big guy, we’re gonna pair with Saren and find Nival and then we’re both gonna get outta the Terminus before I cross any more lines.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As of this moment, I'm pretty sure there's around ten chapters left. Or about that. I had a few directions I could go with the end and I finally settled on one so now I just have to get there.


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Saren reconvened with them on the other side of an asteroid cluster, his ship docking with theirs and both ships dropping into silent mode to avoid any detection. Then the three of them gathered in Mav’s little kitchen again. Crassus had cooked supper for them, still in the mindset of trying to apologize to Mav, who admittedly had already accepted his apology anyway.

“This is great, big guy.” He said after a few bites, mandibles flared in a grin. “Really great. I’ma let you cook more often now.”

Crassus flicked his own back at him and received something of a pleased hum from Saren too. When that was over and done with, Mav spread out a number of datapads on the table, pointing at each one as he explained what was on them. Years worth of correspondence from the other operatives in the sector, various reports in the same vein, and several rumored Geth sightings. Saren was able to confirm a few of them with help from a galaxy map.

“The rumors from Tuchanka were only rumors,” He told them. “I’ve verified all the reports from the Far Rim, Sigurd’s Cradle, and the Vallhallan Threshold, as well as the few sightings in the Rosetta Nebula. That, of course, includes your encounter at that outpost.”

Mav nodded his head. “There’s a commonality,” He hummed after a few moments of studying the map.

“Do tell.”

Crassus saw it too and he drew little circles around each mentioned area. “We’re all stationed here.”

“You, me and Beacon are all in the Vallhallan Threshold,” The smaller turian flicked his mandibles. “Murine and Fiend have Sigurd’s Cradle. Caprice and Oneiric have the Rosetta Nebula.”

“What of Nival?” Saren asked.

“The last time anyone saw him- Beacon, for the record- it was in the Shrike Abyssal.” Mav said. “That was after he got his head knocked in, but he could be anywhere now.”

“That’s possible, yes.” The Spectre agreed. “When was he injured?”

“Beacon told me ‘round half a year ago.” Mav pulled a datapad forward and scanned through it. “Ah well, closer to seven months, but all the same.”

Crassus leaned back in his seat and scanned through the datapad that he kept his reports and other notes on. “Beacon also told us that Nival was deteriorating mentally in some honestly alarming ways, such as paranoid delusions and general cognitive ability.”

“Did Beacon report this?”

“He said that he did and I’m inclined to believe him,” He said. “But Nival has since gone into hiding.”

Mav sighed and ran a hand over his fringe. “I can’t imagine where he’d go. I don’t know him. Hell, none of us seem to know him. He didn’t get infiltration or direct contact orders as far as I know. He’s just out here with the rest of us.”

Saren tapped a single talon on the table. “What are the odds he stayed in the Shrike Abyssal?”

“As good as any, I reckon.” The smaller turian muttered. “But… but I think he’s here somewhere in the Vallhallan Threshold. We’ve seen Geth here, Fiend was attacked here after bein’ lured with my signal. Beacon was the last person to see him alive and we’re all here.”

The Spectre and Crassus both arched browplates at him. “You think it’s all connected in some way?” 

Mav shrugged. “My signal was used.” He said. “Maybe I was supposed to see my own signal and be like _what the fuck_ and follow it. Makes ‘bout as much sense as anythin’ else.”

Saren snorted. “You think highly of yourself.”

“I figure someone should.” He flashed his teeth in a grin.

“Originally we’d thought the use of Mav’s signal meant a leak at a higher level.” Crassus told the Spectre. “But now… Now I agree with you, Mav. I think Nival obtained your signal in someway and used it with the intention of drawing you in. I don’t know why-”

“The _why_ is the part we need to know.” The Spectre said lowly. “Without that, your theories are nothing more than speculation.”

“We don’t have much other than speculation to go on, Saren.” Mav huffed.

“I don’t like it.” He said at length.

“I don’t either.” The smaller turian rubbed at his eyes. “But… but I think I have an idea of how to draw Nival to me, since we realistically have no idea where he is.”

Saren gestured for him to continue.

“I’ll just put my signal on blast and wait for a response.”

Crassus shook his head at Mav. “I don’t think that’s a good idea at all,” He said. “For one, yes we’d all know it was your signal, but anyone else passing along would just register a distress call. For two, you’d draw in too many people and currently, with the price on your head, I don’t think we’d draw in anyone with good intentions.”

The Spectre pinned Mav with an icy glare. “The price on your head.” He repeated.

Mav fluttered his mandibles. “You should see the size of it. I’m almost proud.” He grinned, just a little.

“I’ll be telling Desolas, of course.”

“Tattletale.”

Crassus glanced between them, to the Spectre’s frown and Mav’s teasing grin, and cleared his throat. “Why don’t we just reach out to Nival directly?” He suggested.

The Spectre turned that icy stare toward him and arched a brow. “And say what, exactly?”

“Say that we think there’s been a compromise to all the operatives and that we all need to regroup.” He said. “Tell him that Fiend’s dead, that the others have been attacked in one way or another. Maybe that we’re scrambling to reorganize before more of us are killed.”

Mav tapped his talons on the table. “I don’t know him, but that’s not a line I’d fall for.”

“We don’t need him to fall for it.” Crassus said and his mandibles flicked in the smallest of grins. “We just need him to talk long enough to trace where he is.”

The smaller turian grinned back at him.


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter 22

“Nival, do you copy? It’s Mayhem. Nival, do you copy? Over.” Mav threw his feet up on the dormant dash of the haptic interface and leaned way back in the chair. 

“Really?” Saren leaned on his arms across the back of it.

“You want me to comm out the whole spiel before I know he’s listening? Get offa the chair.” The smaller turian snapped and swatted at him with the hand not holding the radio. “Nival? Do you copy? Over.”

Crassus, meanwhile, had started the process for tracing whatever connection they might get. The Spectre, he knew, didn’t expect them to make any contact at all but at least he was humoring them. Of course, the more times Mav repeated the phase, the less he thought the little plan was going to work.

“...I copy...over...” And then the small voice came crackling through the speakers and Mav gestured them quiet and for Crassus to start the trace.

“Hey listen, I’ve been ordered to extract you. Everyone really but you’re first on the list. Over.” Mav said.

“...Why? Over...”

The smaller turian glanced at Saren over his shoulder. “It’s not really somethin’ I can say over comms,” He lied. “Just trust me. We all need to bail out. Over.”

“I don’t trust you. Over.” Came the immediate reply.

Saren made a noise that was almost an amused snort and Mav punched him in the arm.

“Fair ‘nough, but I need you to, yeah? We’re all in danger. Over.” A moment passed. “Nival?”

“I’m on Altakiril. I’ll send you the coordinates. Over and out.”

Mav blinked and flopped back in his chair with a long sigh. “Big guy?”

“He didn’t lie.” Crassus told him. “The trace puts him on Altakiril… and it matches the coordinates he just sent over too.”

The smaller turian scratched at his fringe and looked up at Saren. “You been to Altakiril?”

The Spectre inclined his head. “I have.” He said. “Our people have colonized it despite the cold.”

“How cold are we talkin’?”

“Negative twenty-four degrees Celsius.”

“Fuckin’ Spirits that’s damned cold.” Mav groaned. “Fuck, I don’t think I have anythin’ that’ll keep me warm out in that.”

“Your armor should.” The Spectre drawled and crossed his arms over his chest.

“ ‘Course it would, but then I’d have to wear it and if I show up in full matte black, Nival might turn all pyjack. Or he might try to shoot me. Or someone else for that matter.” He scratched over his fringe again. “Beacon said he’d gone mental but he sounded perfectly stable to me, cautious, but stable.”

“He did to me, too.” Crassus hummed.

“That worry y’all much as it does me?” Mav asked them.

Saren shrugged lightly. “You’ll wear your armor and paint it if you so wish.” He looked to Crassus. “And, should Nival’s mental state make him more of a danger, you’ll go together and I’ll be waiting near by.”

…

Mav later decided they didn’t need to paint or otherwise modify their armor. “Even goin’ in under the pretense of extraction,” He said. “It’s a turian colony, they probably see Blackwatch from time to time. I don’t think we’ll stick out too much.”

It still made Crassus uneasy and he was half tempted to scuff his armor just because it might make that feeling go away. In the end, he didn’t. He helped Mav don it and then was helped into his own.

“Fuck, I hope it keeps us warm,” The smaller turian muttered. “Negative twenty-four degrees... Who fuckin’ colonizes a place like that?”

Crassus checked the seals on Mav’s armor and then his own. “People desperate to be left alone,”

“Or to hide,” He snorted. “Still better than somewhere the plants that try to eat you.”

“Everywhere is better than Invictus.” Crassus drawled, his mandibles flicked outward.

“I can think of a few places that might not be, but never-mind that, c’mon.”

…

A severe windchill greeted them on Altakiril. So cold even through their armor, that Mav and Crassus both huddled by the hangar doors for a moment. The smaller turian cursing loudly and colorfully while the armor systems took time to properly acclimatize but in under a minute, Crassus could no longer feel the cold or the wind. He shook himself loose of stiffened muscles and showed Mav the coordinates again.

“Good, at least that has us goin’ back inside.” He said, smacking Crassus’ arm to get him to lead the way.

The capital city itself wasn’t far from the docks and its series of more permanent looking prefabs gave way to larger and sturdier looking buildings. Walking into one was like walking into an entirely different climate. The barren cold of the outside surrendered to heated walkways and dull night turned to washed out day beneath recessed lighting. There were people everywhere within the sealed off city too, well away from the doors to outside but lingering near windows and everywhere else all the same.

Mav took his helmet off and hung it from his belt. “Y’know, it almost reminds me of the Citadel,” He muttered. “Not quite as clean, little more industrial but… yeah.”

Crassus hung his helmet off his belt too and took a deep breath. The smell was different than the Citadel, he noticed. Something he couldn’t put his finger on, but almost like the smell of cold itself. He glanced back at the city doors and idly checked their seals.

“I bet you those windows are heated,” The smaller turian pointed. “I wonder how many kids gave the windows a lick before they had to.”

Crassus looked down at him with a mandible tilted outward and a brow raised.

“What? Carthaan was cold. Lotta kids put their tongues to things to see if they’d stick in the winter.” He grinned. “By a lotta kids, I mean me, o’course.”

“I can almost see why Saren always looks like he wants to smack you.” He muttered. “Did you lick his amp too?”

Mav laughed. “I did, yeah, and yeah it does give you a good zappin’.”

Crassus barked a short laugh at that. From anyone but Mav, he wouldn’t have believed the statement. He stopped them down from a short series of commercial buildings and looked at the map on his omnitool again. “Nival should be down this way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like this chapter took me forever for not all that much going on in it. But the next one I've got all laid out and hopefully it'll be longer with a lot more going on, too. I hope. We'll see. _Gadget


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter 23

The building Nival apparently called home had been a type of machinery factory at one point in time but now everything sat dormant or busted and pushed along the walls with no semblance of order or reason. Crassus found it a little fitting when he finally saw Nival for himself. First peaking through a hole in the door when Mav knocked, and then as they’d been let inside.

Nival was tall for a turian, nearly as tall as Crassus, and rail thin as if he were underfed. Where the mercenary he’d tangled with months ago had attempted to beat his head in, his skull was vaguely misshapen. Or maybe it was the lack of fringe-blades on one side that screwed up his symmetry and made him look oddly sunken in. The eye and mandible on that side were wrong too, replaced by shoddy cybernetics.

“Fuck, look at you.” Mav intoned almost sadly. “That bastard really did a number on you...”

Nival blinked at him and the cybernetic eye was slower than the organic one. Crassus couldn’t help the shudder that crawled up his spine. He went ramrod straight when both eyes turned to him. “You I do not know.”

“I’m Overseer.” Mav had told him to stick to call-signs so he did.

Nival blinked unevenly again. “You are tall. See over everything.”

“Ah...Yes.” He glanced quickly at Mav.

“You good to go, Nival?” The smaller turian asked, reaching a hand out to him and Nival jumped back like he’d been shocked, a low growl coming from his chest. “Whoa, okay… okay...”

“Touch is pain. Mayhem is pain. Mayhem brings pain.”

“Er...” Mav linked his hands together and put them on top of his head and shared a look with Crassus. The plan was to take him to Saren as peacefully as possible. “This work for you? Only touchin’ me.”

Nival nodded jerkily and rubbed around that cybernetic eye perhaps a little too hard with his fist and then turned on his heel. Crassus and Mav had little choice but to follow him, the smaller turian taking the middle position and slowly lowering his hands from his head now that Nival wasn’t looking at him. Further back and through another couple of doors, Crassus looked around Nival’s personal space. His cot was buried under ramshackle clothing and blankets, papers and datapads, there were even a few guns peaking out of the mess. Crassus didn’t think he actually slept there, or that he-

Mav’s hand was suddenly on his chest and taking his attention. In the corner against the wall was a Geth Destroyer unit, the long spindly head tipped sideways and down over the vacant chest cavity. It was missing an arm and seemed… dead. Or turned off. Crassus wasn’t sure what the proper word would be for the machine.

“Nival… Why’s there a Geth here?” Mav asked, his voice low and rumbling.

The too thin agent gave a quick shake to his head, stuffing things into a bag with his back to them.

“Why’s there a fuckin’ Geth here, Evander?” He asked again and this time his voice held the note of command that necessitated an answer and with the use of the other agent’s name, it wasn’t something that could be ignored.

Nival turned those mismatched eyes to them, his head tilted to the side. “It is mine. Defeated it. Took its Spirit with the others. I keep them safe.”

“The others? Other Geth?” Mav swore colorfully when the other agent nodded. “Have you lost your fuckin’ mind? Where are the others?”

“In there.” Nival pointed toward a door to the side of his cot.

“Fuck,” The smaller turian drew his side-arm, kept it pointed at the ground and started toward that door.

“No!” Nival threw himself in Mav’s path and Crassus drew his side-arm too, sighting down the barrel at center mass. “No! You can’t have their Spirits! They’re mine! Mine!”

“Fuckin’ move, Nival.” Mav growled quietly. “Or I’ll move you.”

“You cannot have them.” He hissed.

“Nival,” Crassus lowered his voice into a calming, reasonable register before this spiraled out of control. “Nival, we’re not after Spirits or your Geth. We only want to take you somewhere safe.”

“Mayhem brings pain.” He jabbed a finger at Mav, his mandibles flared wide and his teeth showing. “He brings death and destruction. He carries their message in his Spirit and he will not take my Spirits for his own!”

“I genuinely have no idea what you’re talkin’ ‘bout, okay, Nival? No idea whatsoever.” Mav said, his mandibles fluttering as the other agent talked on and on in the same manner. “Nival! Nival, look. Look. I’m puttin’ my gun away, yeah? And Overseer is gonna do the same. Okay? Watch. Watch. We’re not here to hurt you or take Spirits or anythin’ like that. We just wanna take you somewhere safe.”

Mav slowly holstered his weapon again as he spoke and Crassus haltingly did the same. Nival watched them avidly, his rantings slowed into quiet murmurings, hands clutched around his deformed head. And then he sprang, screaming some incoherent mess as he crashed into Mav and they rolled over the floor in a tangle of limbs and curses. In the seconds it took Crassus to react and pull his gun again, Nival had Mav trapped against his chest and a knife to his throat. The smaller agent’s mouth was bloody and he was nearly vibrating with his growl.

“You cut me and my partner will put some holes in you.” He snarled.

“I will.” Crassus confirmed tightly. “Drop the knife, Nival, and let Mayhem go.”

“They _sent_ him here to take my Spirits away! I know they did! I know!”

“Blackwatch sent me for you. Just to take you home. That’s it, that’s all.”

He hovered his finger across the trigger and tried to keep his voice even. He didn’t want to shoot one of their own but it was looking like he might have to. “Let him go, Nival. We’re not here for Spirits, we’re just here for you. I don’t want to shoot you, Nival, don’t make it my only choice here.”

Nival met his eyes with his mismatched ones and there was a lack of _something_ in them, like looking into the eyes of a scared and feral animal. When all reason was gone and all that was let was instinct. The odds of extracting him peacefully had diminished greatly.

“Release him and surrender.” Crassus tried again, unwilling to not at least try to talk the other agent down, his finger moving a fraction closer to the trigger. “One… Two...”

Nival snarled at him and dragged Mav backwards to the door by that cot, dunked down almost behind the smaller. “Overseer won’t shoot. Mayhem is in the way.”

Crassus cursed hotly and eased his finger away. “Release him and surrender.” He ordered again.

“No.” The other agent shook his head in that jerky way and kept dragging Mav toward that door. “No. No, Mayhem must be stopped. He cannot keep collecting the Spirits for them. He will not take mine. I will take his.”

“Let go!” Mav yelled and struggled as he was pulled backwards through the door.

“Nival!” Crassus advanced, his finger on the trigger again and a millisecond away from squeezing.

And then Nival threw something small and oblong at him. Something that bounced off his chest and landed at his feet.

“Crassus!”

He backpedaled fast, his omnitool activating at the same instant as the boom.


	24. Chapter 24

Chapter 24

Crassus opened his eyes slower than he would have really liked but at least, he told himself, he was able to open them again. Spirits, he’d never been more grateful for the kinetic shielding of his barrier. The percussion of the grenade had still rattled him about and disoriented him but for the most part he was unharmed, if unsure how much time he’d lost. Crassus retrieved his gun from the ground and rolled cautiously to his feet, shaking his head against his ringing ears and spinning vision. He was probably concussed but that was light-years better than dead.

“Mav!” He yelled, still trying to right himself. He couldn’t see straight at all. “Mav!”

And if there was a reply, he couldn’t hear it over the insistent ringing. Crassus cursed, stumbling on his feet as he made it to the door Nival had dragged Mav through. He planted his back beside it, pushed it open and peaked in quickly to see just a long hallway. Spirits, they could have gone anywhere…

“Spectre,” He barked into his omnitool. “Spectre, I can’t hear anything. There was a grenade. Nival took Mav and I don’t know if they’re still here, but I need your help asap. I’m about to head down a hallway next to Nival’s cot. You can’t miss it.”

Crassus took a deep breath and moved down the corridor, gun at the ready, his ears straining for anything, any noise slight or otherwise under all the sound in his own head. He darted next to open doors, looked in, scanned for any signs of Nival or Mav or other dangers and moved on to the next when each one showed him nothing of note. Until he peaked into a room that did.

Stationary Geth lined the walls, still and solemn like old suits of armor. Pieces of them littered the floor, scattered in every direction. And at the center of the room, a table under a bright light. A body in mangled matte-black armor splayed atop it.

“Mav...” Crassus breathed. “Mav!”

Rushing to his side, he saw that Mav’s chest armor had been cracked down the middle, its edges torn and jagged and he couldn’t imagine what had possibly done that. Nival had cut him open from the bottom of his keelbone to the top of his pelvis, exposing all the muscle, organs and bone of his unplated belly. Mav’s blood still dripped off the sides of the table to pool under it. Like Fiend gutted in her own ship, like the men Mav had killed so brutally in the brothel…

“Mav...” He murmured and reached to touch the smaller turian’s face, a prayer falling from his lips in a heartfelt whisper. “Spirits guide you home, Mav.”

That crooked mandible quivered weakly against his palm and Mav peaked up at him. “N-not just yet, big guy.” He rasped.

Crassus could only stare. Lost to shock and surprise. Half of Mav’s insides were outside and by all rights he should be dead. Only he wasn’t, his breathing shallow and labored and there was blood absolutely everywhere, but he wasn’t dead.

“I’m real glad to see you,” Mav almost smiled, one of his hands flopped around until it found a part of Crassus’ armor to latch onto.

“You’re alive...”

“You are too.” His eyes fluttered closed again. “Need you to help me or… or I won’t be much longer, yeah? Anythin’ for pain would be real ‘preciated...used all mine already...”

Crassus got himself to focus again. Field medicine had been his specialty before sniping and he always carried a number of supplies in his pockets. Nothing really that would help the extent of the damage done to Mav, but he could take some of his pain away and he could try to stop some of the bleeding. He pressed a hyposyringe to the smaller turian’s throat and watched him sag down on the table.

“F-fuck, thank you...” He mumbled.

He emptied his pockets out on Mav’s chest: more syringes, a little bit of gauze, a little omnigel, a scalpel and a few stims. Nothing he had was really going to make a difference, scanning the room to see if Nival had left him anything to work with to help his partner, proved pointless. “Spectre,” He said into his omnitool. “I’ve got Mav. Nival… it looks like he tried to dissect him. Mav’s holding on but he’s going to need real medical help very, very soon.”

“N-n-not dyin’ here, big guy.” Mav murmured. “You’re gonna… you’re gonna save me...”

“I’m going to do my best, Mav.” Crassus told him, throwing his gloves off and aside so he could feel inside Mav, to search for what was actively bleeding. The smaller turian screamed and writhed. “I need you to try to be still. I can’t imagine how much it hurts, but you need to try to be still.”

“It hurts a lot,” Mav keened, the tone childlike and pitiful. “Fuck, it hurts a lot.”

“I know, I’m sorry.” He worked as quickly and efficiently as he could with what little he had to work with. Mav’s insides were hot and slippery but that was good, he hadn’t lost too much blood even if it looked like he had. Soon, Crassus had stopped the bleeding and packed the wound with gauze to seep up what was there. He checked Mav’s pulse and listened to his breathing, to his whimpers… “You’re okay, Mav. You’ll be okay.”

“Fuck,” He sobbed. “Fuck,”

Crassus laid a hand over his fringe and stroked Mav’s foreplate with his thumb to try to comfort him. “Spectre,” He said into his omnitool again, annoyed that he still hadn’t gotten a response. “Spectre.”

“ _I’ve retrieved Nival. I’m heading toward your position now.”_

Crassus breathed a long sigh of relief. “Mav needs immediate medical attention. I did what I could but-”

“ _I’ve called in a proper evac. Keep him alive.”_


	25. Chapter 25

Chapter 25

The _proper evac_ turned out to be a small Blackwatch frigate and another Spectre, as well as a whole team of medical personnel. They wrapped Mav in several heat retaining blankets after making sure he was stable and then carried him away. Crassus watched with his mandibles tight to his face, relieved at least, that it was their own people and that Mav would be safe. But the feeling of unease wouldn’t leave him. Mav had been near to gutted and lost enough blood to need at least a few transfusions, he was far from out of the woods. He’d probably feel better if he was going with them all, wherever they were going.

Saren stood by the blood covered table, one hand resting where Mav’s head had been. His mandibles were screwed tight to his jaw.

“He’s going to be alright,” Crassus said, partly to break the tension in the air and partly just to say the words aloud to convince himself.

The Spectre withdrew his hand and wiped it off. “Of course.” He said. “Mavic is a survivor, first and foremost.”

“He is.” Crassus agreed with a soft incline of his head. He turned to look at the Geth along the walls. “What did Nival have to say about… this?”

“Before I shot him, quite a lot.” The Spectre sighed long, moving to stand beside Crassus. “Very little of it made sense. He seemed to think the Geth were truly sentient like you or I.”

“And the Spirits?” He asked. “He kept saying the Spirits were his, I assume he meant the Geth, but...” Crassus shrugged and looked back at that table before he could stop himself. The blood was nearly dry. “When he overpowered Mav, he said he was going to take his Spirit before Mav could take his.”

Saren made a dismissive gesture. “Nival had lost his mind.” He said. “I would argue completely. Geth and Spirits and old gods-”

“Old gods?” His mandibles flicked.

“He said the old gods wanted the Spirits and that was why he had to protect them. Why he had to take Mavic’s and Fiends, because they were vessels. Or some nonsense like that. It doesn’t matter, Agent Sativum, Nival had gone mad.” 

Crassus rubbed his face with both hands. “There had to be something of him left.” He said. “Some part of him. There’s sixteen Geth here, I counted. Someway, Nival still had enough ability to kill and dismantle them safely enough to bring them here.”

“It doesn’t matter now.” The Spectre scoffed. “He’s quite dead.”

“Good.” He said slowly and rubbed at his eyes. “Do we need to do anything with all this?”

The Spectre shook his head. “Not you, no. My own team will handle the clean up.”

Crassus inclined his head again in understanding. “And Nival’s body?”

“It went with Mavic’s evac.” He turned away from the table and the Geth and strode to the door. “You should return to your ship, Agent Sativum, and meet with the frigate in atmo. I have my own assignments to attend to. Wish Mavic a speedy recovery for me, if you would.”

“Ah… Of course, yes.” Crassus agreed and watched him leave. He gave a last look to the gathered Geth and that table.

…

Mav’s ship fit snugly in the hangar of the Blackwatch frigate. Tucked out of the way of the other ships while some mechanic ranted on and on about the various retrofits and upgrades to make it blend in to Terminus life. Crassus ignored it and found himself an escort to the medbay. Mav was in surgery and would be for a while. It left him with little choice but to give a full report to the attending General, and with no time to go over details with Mav, it was a _full_ report.

Hours and hours later, he returned to the medbay. Mav had been moved to a recovery room and he was just starting to come to. Blinking with eyes too wide, his head and mandibles wiggling uncontrollably, he reminded Crassus of a bird knocked from the nest. Watching him move and shift over and over on the bed as he tried to get comfortable was a pitiful sight too. Eventually Crassus snagged him some pillows from another bed and made a sort of nest out of them that he could prop himself on. Mav’s thank you was slurred but he’d nearly slipped back to sleep anyway. Crassus settled in a chair to wait.

He didn’t know how long had passed after that before he opened his eyes again to Mav reaching across and poking him. “Where am I, big guy?”

Crassus scooted his chair closer, mandibles flicking into an almost smile. The smaller turian still looked all out of it. “A Blackwatch frigate, courtesy of the Spectre.”

“Oh, cool.” Mav rested back into his pillows with a soft sigh. “They put me back together?”

“They did. You were in surgery for close to five hours but I’m told you’ll make a full recovery.” He said. “There’s probably going to be some heavy scarring but...”

“That’s okay.” He murmured. “Not like I don’t already have some.”

Crassus flicked his mandibles again. He knew it was everything in Mav’s IV bag but it was a little unnerving to see the other agent so muted. “They’re taking us to Palaven, I suppose they were already heading in that direction when the Spectre called for their help. I’ve got your ship parked in the hangar, too.”

Mav nodded his head. “Saren leave?”

“He did. He wished you a fast recovery.”

The smaller turian nodded his head again and shifted to get more comfortable, whining in the back of his throat. “Nival?”

“He’s dead.” Crassus told him.

“Fuckin’ good.”

There Mav was, muted yes, but he was still there. Crassus did smile now. “I said the same.”

Mav snorted at that and then groaned. “Laughin’ hurts, big guy.”

“Sorry.” He ran a hand back over his fringe and then clasped the both of them together in his lap. “I gave a report while you were under the knife. I reported Fiend and the Geth, obviously, but… but I left out what you did at the brothel. Out of respect for Ailuros and Baast and… and you, I guess, now that I think about it.”

His mandibles fluttered and those orange eyes pinned him to the chair.

“I think, despite your methods, you did what was… if not right, needed. And I can’t fault you for that.” Crassus continued. “More goes on out in the Terminus than I think our superiors truly realize. You had no choice but to meet violence with violence and you had to...” It was hard for him to put into words even if he had spent the last several days thinking about it. “You had to make a bigger impact than the lord there. Killing them all the way you did was the only way you could put your stamp of protection on the brothel because uttermost violence is all the lords and masters understand. So… I left it out of my report because it’s not a language the higher ups speak.”

Mav blinked at him a few times. “I wish I didn’t speak it either,” He murmured. “You understand it, big guy, but now’s your chance to back outta tryin’ to learn to speak it.”

Crassus fluttered his mandibles in an indecisive way. “There’s no putting order to the chaos but I’d like to help build the boundaries around it, if I can.”

“Think ‘bout it,” Mav advised him, his voice weak with exhaustion again. “Really, really think ‘bout it.”

He nodded his head. “I’ll let you rest.”


	26. Chapter 26

Chapter 26

“Crass!” Taren slung her arms around his neck and hugged tightly while he held her off the ground and squeezed back just as close.

“Congratulations,” He said and pressed a kiss to her short fringe.

“I thought you weren’t going to make it in time.” She trilled as he sat her back on her feet. “I kept looking and looking for you-”

“I was late. I had to stand toward the back.” He confessed. “I wouldn’t miss your induction. I’d planned to be here even if Mav and I were still in the field.”

“How is he?” Taren asked, stepping back and smoothing down the new cadet uniform she wore. Today, after she’d graduation from school with honors and been accepted to an engineering focused program.

Crassus did the same with his Blackwatch dress uniform and shrugged. “I haven’t seen him since he left the hospital, but he was recovering fine.” He, of course, hadn’t told her the details of how badly Mav had been injured, or about the secondary infection that had nearly killed the smaller turian, but weeks later, he was finally doing better. “I was thinking about paying him a visit later.”

Taren looped her arms around one of his. “After you feed me, right?”

“Of course.” He laughed and lead her from the audience hall.

…

Later that evening, after he had taken Taren back to her dorm, Crassus drove out to Mav’s apartment in Cipritine. He found the high-rise building easily enough, left his car in the lot and then waited a ridiculous amount of time for the elevator to take him to the correct floor. He knocked on the door a half dozen times before Mav answered it, leaning heavily on the door frame, too pale and thin looking. He guessed all the medicine the smaller been given after leaving the hospital wasn’t treating him well.

“You look half way to dead,” He told Mav with a carefully teasing flick of his mandibles.

Mav snorted at him. “I reckon I probably do,” He stood to the side to let Crassus in.

The apartment was relatively small but didn’t look near as cluttered as Mav’s ship had. In fact it was nice and orderly, decorated simply. A few fake plants, a couch and matching chair, a bookshelf… It looked a lot like Crassus’ own apartment on the Citadel and that was something he honestly hadn’t expected.

“How are you feeling?” He asked as Mav gestured that he sit on the couch.

“Half way to dead,” Mav grinned and sat down next to him with a pained groan. “Fuck. I feel fine overall. Sore, mostly. I’m fuckin’ hungry but they still got me on a liquid diet and that just don’t hit the spot.”

“I imagine it doesn’t.” Crassus agreed.

“Not at fuckin’ all.” He sighed and leaned his head back. “They gave me shit to help me sleep too but it makes me sick. First time I threw up I thought I was gonna ruin all their good work. The stitches and graphs, I mean. Don’t want that.”

He hadn’t known Mav was having trouble sleeping, but after what Nival had done to him, it made sense that he would. “Nightmares?”

“Sometimes,” The smaller agent said. “Mostly I just can’t get to sleep. Too tense, y’know?”

Crassus nodded his head. “Have you talked to anyone?”

“’Bout what Nival did?” Mav arched a brow at him. “Nah. I mean, the docs asked, ‘course they did, but what’s there to really say? He cut me open and scooped my stuffin’ out.”

He flicked his mandibles. “That’s nearly the definition of a traumatizing experience.”

“Layin’ there lookin’ at my guts and blood, wonderin’ where you were? Yeah.” He deadpanned. “Thought I got you killed ‘til I heard you prayin’ over me.”

Crassus felt his mandibles shift back and forth. “I thought my inability to react quickly got you killed.”

Mav snorted again. “You did the only thing you can do when someone throws a grenade at you. Dunk, cover and hope for the best.” He sighed and tried to make himself comfortable on the couch. “Nival threw that at you and I just… fuck, big guy, I screwed up not takin’ him down by force when I had the chance. I wanted to give him the opportunity to explain, yknow? Cuz he was one of ours, figured I owed him that much, crazy or not, thought I owed him a chance to explain.”

“I thought we did, too.” Crassus agreed, looking at him sideways. Mav’s mandibles were pressed flat along his jaw. “Neither of us knew how far gone he was, not at all.”

“Nah,” The smaller turian hummed with another sigh. “He got me on that table and used some tool I’d never seen before to crack my armor open like a fuckin’ egg. Then he used his talons to cut me. Said he didn’t want to damage what was in me, he just needed to get to it. I could feel him movin’ stuff ‘bout...reachin’ in me… Then you were there.”

His mandibles fluttered.

“I was real glad to see you,” Mav continued. “Real glad. Grateful, even. You were alive and I knew you’d do everythin’ in your power to keep me that way, too. Did… Have I thanked you yet?”

Crassus blinked at him, his mandibles fluttering. “Ah… no, no you haven’t, but you don’t need-”

“Thanks for savin’ my life, Crass.” The smaller turian interrupted, smiling at him. “Told you I didn’t have a death-wish.”

That last bit startled a laugh out of him and Crassus ran a hand over his fringe when it had stopped, looking to Mav again and his little smile. “You’re welcome, Mav.”

Mav flicked his mandibles with that smile and then leaned sideways to touch his foreplate to Crassus’ shoulder in a sign of affection. The action surprised him more than he could really put words to, but in the end, he patted Mav’s fringe in acceptance.


End file.
